


Feed The Flame 'Cause We Can't Let Go

by pansexualorgana (MaximumMarygold)



Series: Into Focus [2]
Category: Fullmetal Alchemist - All Media Types, Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Blend of 03 and Brotherhood, Crossover, Genderfluid Character, Genderfluid Edward Elric, Harry Potter AU, Hogwarts AU, M/M, Mostly because I cant remember what happened when and eh, Nonbinary Character, Nonbinary Edward Elric, Professor! Ed, goblet of fire - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-28
Updated: 2020-12-29
Packaged: 2021-02-28 20:21:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 17
Words: 49,235
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23353117
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MaximumMarygold/pseuds/pansexualorgana
Summary: Hogwarts needed an alchemy teacher; Amestris needed an ally."Cool it, Elric.Count to ten.Blame the bastard for all of your problems.Put the fear of Truth in these children."
Relationships: Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter, Edward Elric/Roy Mustang
Series: Into Focus [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1867465
Comments: 278
Kudos: 1337
Collections: Crossovers and Fusion Fics





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> hey whats up i have fuckin pneumonia and i love professor ed so lets use all of my obscure harry potter trivia for something other than embarrassing my family at scene it

It had been Mustang’s hairbrained idea. Most things that ended with Ed in fuckin’ weird situations nowadays tended to be Mustang’s fault. 

And this was, on a scale of One to Weird: _Pretty Goddamn Fuckin’ Weird, Roy, What The Fuck_. 

Ed had died, fallen down a rabbit hole into a different universe, found their way back just in time to stop an invasion, went _back_ down the rabbit hole in a way that was more of a saunter vaguely downward than it was a _fall_ , learned an entirely new kind of science, and made it _back home_ \--

And this was still the weirdest shit.

Metal fingers clenched at the wooden desk they were leaning on; they could do this. They’d mastered alchemy and rocket science. They’d figured out dimensional travel -- situationally, anyways. They could teach first level alchemy to a bunch of teenage brats in weird clothes.

Supposedly.

As it were, they hadn’t done much in the way of teaching in the three minutes and seventeen seconds since the class was technically supposed to start. They’d just stood there, one leg crossed over the other, leaning so heavily on the desk that a lesser wood would have turned itself into paper just to end it’s suffering. 

Glowering. 

Fuckin’ hell, why couldn’t Mustang have picked Al? Al was good with kids. Al knew what to say to them. Al had a personality people _liked_ and the ability to _connect_ with people and a love for cats that witches and wizards should have, statistically, vibed with. 

All Ed had was two metal limbs and a resting bitch face that could apparently keep a group of twenty teenagers silent for going on four whole minutes.

But Al had a _life_ , independant from the Military and Ed was, unfortunately, still a dog on a leash. Though, under Mustang’s leadership the leash had gotten a hell of a lot longer; and being The Alchemist of The People had made theirs longer still. 

That was also what had gotten them into this mess-- and it was a mess, make no mistake. Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Bullshittery was a goddamn nightmare from the quick rundown they’d gotten on their way out of Amestris. 

Four Defense teachers in as many years; the newest of whom was. Royally freaky. He had this _eye_ and it wasn’t like Mustang’s fake eye where it was just… an eye. That looked like an eye, and acted like an eye and did _eye things_ . Moody’s eye darted around and rolled back and could _see out of the back of his head_.

It just made Ed uneasy. 

That and the sudden, inexplicable disappearance of Professor Dunkirk, the previous Alchemy teacher. Ed wasn’t exactly thrilled to be taking the place of a man who may have just been fucking _murdered_.

_“Well, that’s why you’ll be going,” Mustang had said, his fingers braced in front of his face, “I don’t like it any more than you do, but the headmaster specifically asked for a Amestranian alchemist and given the circumstances you’re the only one I trust to not fuck it all up or get themselves killed.”_

_Ed had groaned their displeasure and flopped sideways onto that stupidly comfortable couch Mustang kept in his office for Definitely Not Naps, Fullmetal, Shut It Before I Write You Up For Insubordination._

_“You could have denied the request,” they pointed out, blinking resignedly at the ceiling. The holes from that one time Havoc and Breda had tried to see who could make a pencil stay stuck the longest were still there. Ed counted thirty four._

_Neither of them had been very good at the game._

_They didn’t have to look to know that Mustang’s expression had shifted into Politics and that they were Definitely Going To England._

_Motherfucker._

_“We could use the good will of a country beyond the wards,” Mustang said slowly, “it would do a lot to keep other countries here from trying to use the change in regime to try and, as you would so delicately put it, start shit.”_

_“I want it on the record that I don’t like it,” they said._

_“Noted.”_

_“And I refuse to teach the brats anything more than I knew at, I don’t know, eight or shit.” They’d survived human transmutation at eleven. Single digits seemed like the safest bet to avoid gratuitous property damage._

_“That would be preferred,” Mustang agreed easily._

_“I hate this.”_

_“So you’ve said.”_

_“And I also think that the headmaster isn’t telling you everything.”_

_“On that we agree completely.”_

Back in the present, they figured they should probably get the inevitable over with. 

“Let’s get something straight,” they said, after four and a half minutes of complete silence and vaguely terrified, skirting glances, “my name is Ed, and if you call me Professor Elric I will barf on you.” 

Scattered laughter.

Ed’s scowl deepened.

“That wasn’t a joke, but alright.” Ed shrugged and pushed up off of the desk, straightening the cuff of their shirt, “Do any of you actually know what alchemy even _is_ , or did you just pick the class thinking it would be an easy pass.” 

A small, dark skinned girl, seated between a boy with violently red hair and another with terrible round glasses, shot her hand into the air with such enthusiasm that she nearly knocked the offending spectacles right off the other child’s nose.

Ed pointed at her, “You. Um…” Shit. They hadn’t taken roll. Fuck. They did not know a single child’s name. Shit. Children all looked _alike_. “Red tie.”

“Hermione Granger,” the girl answered, seemingly unphased that Ed hadn’t bothered to know who any of them were before beginning to ask questions, “Alchemy is the medieval forerunner of, what muggles call, chemistry, based on the supposed transformation of matter. It was concerned particularly with attempts to convert base metals into gold or to find a universal elixir--”

“Close, but no cigar,” Ed interrupted, though they made sure to keep their posture relaxed because Granger had the same look as Falman -- if Ed told her she was wrong she may just burst into tears and _fuck they were not equipped for that_ , “You’ve got the base concepts, though considering England puts much more stock in magic than alchemy I’m not surprised.” She still looked a little wobbly around her mouth, “You did good,” Ed assured her quickly, lifting their hands in assurance, “Five points to.” What were the houses? “Red?” Hopefully magic was intuitive enough to figure shit out until Ed got the hang of it, “Amestranian alchemy is just… different.”

Shit. Fuck. Explanations on why Nicholas Flamel was a hack would probably not go down well in this country.

A demonstration maybe? Kids loved demonstrations. 

“Watch,” they said, before clapping and slamming their hand into the wood of the desk. The familiar blue sparks played up their arm and tickled their cheek and the reality that they’d nearly lost it hit them like a brick to the gut. 

When the light faded, the class let out a collective gasp; rising from the tabletop was a perfect recreation of the classroom -- every student included, with even a tiny Ed leaning on the desk.

“Alchemy,” they said, trying very hard not to sound as smug as they felt, “is a science, as Miss. Granger said. It is the science of understanding the composition of matter, deconstructing said matter, and then reassembling it.” One gloved hand gestured to the desk, “This is simple. I didn’t change the molecular construction of the wood, I simply reshaped it. If you actually pay attention, you may be able to do something similar by the end of the year.” 

Instant outrage.

“The end of the year?” A blonde boy in a green striped tie shouted, rising from his seat. “That’s nonsense!”

Oh.

Oh, hell to the fuck no. 

“Sit down!” Ed barked, adjusting their stance minutely until they were every ounce the Lieutenant Colonel they were. To his minimal credit, the blonde boy sat down, “What is nonsense, Blondie, is that you think _that_ horseshit is acceptable in any capacity; in a classroom setting or otherwise. Especially in _my_ classroom.” They cast a glance around the rest of the room -- every student was sitting ramrod straight and stock still in their seats.

Granger’s eyes were wide as saucers.

Cool it, Elric.

Count to ten.

Blame the bastard for all of your problems. 

Put the fear of Truth in these children.

“What are we? Thirty stories up?” They wandered to the window and peeked out, “Give or take.” They looked back to the class, “If I’d tried that shit with my alchemy teacher, do you know what she would have done? She’d have grabbed me by my hair and flung me out this window and expected me to figure out a way to survive the fall on my way down.”

Another gasp, this time: horrified. Even blondie shifted uncomfortably in his seat.

“And we did it; me and my kid brother. Teacher once left us on a fuckin' island for a _month_ and just. Fucked off. Came back to see if we figured shit out or died of starvation." The smile on their face was hard when they turned back to the loud kid, "How about you? What's your name?"

“Draco Malfoy,” the kid answered immediately, clearly trying to keep up his haughty facade of bullshit. Whatever. Ed was married to a haughty facade of bullshit. “You may have heard of my family.”

Ed’s eyebrows rose; “Can’t say I have,” they drawled, “and also, I don’t really care. I have had enough bullshit posturing to last me several lifetimes. I don’t care who your daddy is or who your daddy knows, and I don’t have to. The only thing I have to care about is whether you do your school work and don’t blow yourself up in the process. Which, right now, I'd kiss your eyebrows goodbye.” They squinted, "If you even have any. They kind of blend into your face, it's hard to tell."

Malfoy went slowly red with fury but didn't say anything else.

A mousy, round faced boy in a red tie raised his hand.

“Yes, Mr…?” They really should have taken roll.

“L-Longbottom, sir,” Ed hid a wince-- Mustang warned them that England was eons behind on gender politics -- “Uh. Neville. Neville Longbottom.”

Ed nodded, “You had a question?” They prodded when he didn’t seem inclined to continue.

“Y-yes. Um. When you say we could blow ourselves up…”

“Unlikely, but possible.” Ed admitted, “I’m not going to be teaching you anything overly complicated and while we may talk about it there will be no practical uses of combat alchemy in this class -- _do not start with me_ \-- you brats are bad enough with magic I’m not giving you the ability to light your classmates on fire by snapping.”

“Is _that_ possible?” The redhead next to Granger asked, not bothering to raise his hand.

“Oh, totally,” Ed said, leaning back against the desk and tossing their braid back over their shoulder, “mind you it’s not _easy_ and it takes planning and something to actually create the spark. You can’t create something out of nothing, with alchemy. If you’re double teaming it with magic it may be another story but since I’m not a magic user--”

“You’re a muggle?” Malfoy nearly shrieked.

Ed’s back stiffened. Right. Casual racism against non-magic folks. Mustang had mentioned that one too, hadn’t he? “I’m a non-magical person, yes,” they said, “but I don’t see how that would make a difference considering this is a _non-magical class._ ”

There was absolutely no possible way for them to infuse _more_ Shut The Fuck Up Or Else into their voice. Not even Scar could have pulled off a tone so stony.

And yet, Malfoy kept talking.

A vein in Ed's temple started throbbing.

“That’s ridiculous! A muggle! At Hogwarts! Is that even _allowed_?”

“Clearly it’s allowed,” the boy with the glasses snapped, “or else Elric wouldn’t be here.”

“Another five points to red,” Ed said, then quietly in Granger’s direction, “what is your house's name?”

“Gryffindor,” she whispered back, “green is Slytherin.”

“Five points to Gryffindor. Five points _from_ Slytherin,” Ed said slightly louder, throwing a wink at Granger. If that got Gryffindor an extra five points, well, good. Granger had earned it for doing them a solid. “Now, where were we?”

The rest of the lesson, actually, went pretty smooth. A few Slytherin shaped hiccups, mostly in the form of Malfoy, that Ed shot down immediately. With their new rank had come subordinates they had to wrangle and a couple of teenagers was _nothing_ compared to a bunch of rank-climbing, career-military suck-ups. 

At the end of the hour, they sent the group away with a print out of the periodic table with strict directions to _learn it_ if they ever wanted to do anything other than theory. Not that Ed would have minded theory -- Ed could talk alchemical theory all day, every day and not be bored. But they had a sneaking suspicion that the same could not be said for the children who had just left their classroom.

The moment the door shut behind the last brat -- Granger, who they supposed was the least bratty of the bunch-- Ed allowed themself to collapse into the chair behind their desk. There was about fifteen minutes before their second group arrived -- sixth year, mixed house if they recalled. Which, cool, they could learn what the fuck the two other colors were called.

But also, _ow_.

The first time they’d seen Hogwarts up close they’d marveled at the architecture and gaped at the sheer size of it. But a castle is a castle, magical or no, and it was drafty as _fuck_ and their automail was not having a good time. 

Ed rolled their metal shoulder, thinking especially rude thoughts about the staircases that thought it was funny to move when they were in the middle of using them. Mustang was going to pay for this. Possibly literally; at this rate they were going to have to ask Dumbledor for a… p… prat... No that’s an insult. Poooooo…..r….. Fuck. 

The thing that jerked their stomach into next week and let them cross the wards with minimal fuss and maximum nausea.

They’d need one of _those_ just to pay Winry a visit and see if she could do anything about their limbs before winter came and froze them off. Family Discount or no, Rockbell Automail was not cheap. That sounded like a problem for Mustang.

Ed looked up as the first student of their next period arrived -- first pair, actually. Both with flaming red hair. Ed’s eyes narrowed, “You two have a little brother?”


	2. pour it in a well we can go to hell; we'll get it on the way

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i would die for minerva mcgonagall and i want that on the record

Minerva McGonagall, Deputy Headmistress, reminded Ed enough of Izumi for them to immediately decide she was trustworthy. She was all rules and regulations and  _ don't set things on fire  _ with a warm smooshy center that cared deeply for all of her students. Ed would, however, pay good money to see her throw that Malfoy kid out the window.

“And not all of the green brats are even, well, brats!” Ed complained, “It’s just the ones that follow him around. I’m about to get accused of favoritism because I dole out extra points to the good ones so Malfoy doesn’t screw the curve so much.” 

Minerva, who hadn’t looked up from the essay’s she was grading for the duration of Ed’s ‘Let’s Feed Malfoy To The Giant Squid’ rant, finally deigned to lift her eyes; her mouth curling into an indulgent smile, “That’s quite kind of you, Elric,” she said, “and here I thought you didn’t want to be here.”

Ed huffed, crossing their arms over their chest and dropping into one of the plush chairs in front of Minerva’s desk, “I don’t. But I’m also not going to try to drum the importance of Equivalent Exchange into these kids while letting one bad sigil ruin the circle. Green is still getting docked points, I’m not compensating that much. But I had to take sixty five points today, Minnie.  _ Sixty five _ . And I take them in five point increments.” 

Minerva’s ceiling was very nice; she’d enchanted it like the Great Hall, though hers seemed to only ever show the Northern Lights. It was a cool trick. For a moment Ed felt a little pang of jealousy -- alchemy could do a lot, but it couldn’t do that.

“Have you considered giving him detention?” Minerva asked, pointedly not commenting on being called ‘Minnie’. Ed hadn’t been especially  _ chummy  _ with the other teachers, seeking her out when they needed to talk something out or complain about a student (Malfoy) and avoiding Moody altogether; but the one thing she’d gathered from the awed whispers of Elric’s students was that they were a force of nature once they got something in their head.

Her mentioning that exactly no one besides her late wife had ever called her ‘Minnie’ and lived to tell the tale would have no effect whatsoever on the blonde’s behavior.

And she quite liked it that way, in all honesty. 

Ed reminded her quite a lot of Rowan in that way. The fierceness, the inability to back down, the complete dedication to something once it was started, whether they’d wanted to do it or not. They dove into the fray headfirst, found their footing, and trudged on. 

From what she’d heard, Alchemy was quickly becoming a favorite subject, when before it had barely had enough interested students for them to continue  _ offering  _ it.

“And be stuck in a room with him for an hour?” Ed wrinkled their nose, “An hour of my  _ off time _ ?” That was a  _ hard no _ . They’d rather have to deal with Envy’s running commentary reverberating through their skull, nonstop, for a month than give up one extra second of their life in the presence of  _ Draco Malfoy _ .

Petty? Possibly. But they had to deal with enough absolute bullshit in Amestris; rubbing elbows, smiling pretty,  _ networking _ . Hogwarts was their reprieve from endless meetings and political galas. 

If Malfoy threatened that his father would hear about something  _ one  _ more time, Ed was going to take those twins up on their offer to hex his mouth shut.

Minerva sighed and pushed the ceramic container in the corner of her desk closer to the edge, “Have a biscuit, Elric.”

And. Well.

Edward Elric has done many things in their life, but they’ve never said no to free cookies.

‘A’ biscuit turned into four, turned into tea, turned into a lively discussion between the similarities between transfiguration and transmutation.

Minerva had  _ fascinating  _ insight; though she tended to think of things as very black and white, with no room for gray, while all alchemy was, essentially, was a huge gray area with endless possibilities and purposes.

“I’m telling you,” Ed said, scribbling into a spare sheet of parchment Minerva had conjured for them, “it might work. I know that Granger is good at just about everything, but the middle Redhead,” because there were the Twins, then the middle boy who was friends with Granger, and then there was the younger girl, “he has trouble thinking things through in  _ words _ , but he’s fuckin’ amazing at chess. And he’s catching onto alchemy pretty quickly as well. If you start explaining transfiguration to him more like it’s a  _ science,  _ like it’s something that has a set goal and a logical, concise way to get there… I think he’ll improve by leaps and bounds.”

And Minerva had to admit. She had never considered that. She’d known that Weasley was an excellent chess player, he’d made that apparent in his first year, which is why she’d tended to get  _ more  _ frustrated with him when he bungled a simple spell. 

But Ed’s approach, to have him break it down into science and steps and not just one rush of magic, to teach him in a language he already knew rather than expect him to learn a whole new one, it made  _ sense _ . 

Suddenly, it was acutely obvious why Fuhrer Mustang had recommended Elric for this position.

“Also, I think he’s dyslexic,” Ed added as an afterthought.

“Excuse me?” 

Twirling the end of their long braid around one gloved index finger, Ed scrunched up their entire face in a way that made them seem very young -- they  _ were  _ very young, but very rarely did they look it, “Dyslexia. The reading difficulty.”

“I can’t say I’ve ever heard of it,” but she was highly interested.

“It’s a disorder, I guess, though I don’t like that word and I want it on the record, that affects the learning centers of the brain. I don’t have it, personally, christ could you imagine trying to pull off the shit I’ve pulled off when letters are actively  _ moving around _ ? But anyways, it makes reading  _ really  _ difficult, especially in certain fonts. The letters can blend into each other or just fuck off entirely,” they waggled their fingers away from their face in demonstration. “The wizarding world really doesn’t know about  _ dyslexia _ ? It’s one of the most common learning disabilities -- again, a word I don’t like.”

That would explain an awful lot about the state of Ronald Weasley’s essays. It also dropped a lead brick of solid and sour  _ guilt  _ into the pit of Minerva’s stomach.

“Are there other… disabilities… that affect learning?” She asked slowly. Merlin, they’d really dropped the quaffle on this one. As an educator, she should have known of these things long, long ago. As someone who actively adored her students, she owed a fair few of them an apology. 

Something shifted in Elric’s expression, nothing obvious, just a slight softening of the harsh line of their mouth that spoke of tension being lifted, “I’ll make you a list,” they said, their voice warmer than Minerva, or anyone this side of the wards, had ever heard it. 

“You know,” they said, fifteen minutes and another 3 biscuits later, “you remind me of someone.”

“Oh?” Minerva raised one eyebrow carefully, “Should I be insulted?”

Ed laughed, loud and bright, the candle light catching the unique gold of their eyes and making them look nearly cat-like. Minerva very pointedly didn’t smirk.

“No,” they shook their head, “Teacher is the best. She kind of raised me and my brother after our mom died. Taught me everything I know about alchemy, and how to make a killer meatloaf.”

The eyebrow simply rose higher, “The same teacher who left you on a deserted island for a month?”

“That’s the one,” Ed nodded, unconcerned, “She and her husband Sig live in Dublith; he runs a butcher shop and she’s one hell of an alchemist. Gave me a fuckin’ wallop when I joined the military,” they winced at the memory, reaching up to rub the back of their head, “But, she didn’t twitch when I told her that I liked guys, or that I  _ wasn’t  _ a guy all of the time. And she never turned me away when I showed up on her doorstep bleeding.”

Minerva could feel herself going gray, “Did that happen  _ often _ ?”

“Eh,” Ed wiggled their hand, “Less over the years. Mostly when I drop in now I call first and bring a pie. But seriously, I think if you two ever met you’d have a plan for world domination drawn up in five minutes flat.”

Allowing a low chuckle, Minerva shook her head, “I’m more than happy where I am, thank you.”

Nodding sagely, Ed flicked their braid behind their shoulder and rose to their feet, “A wise choice, honestly. It’s hard enough running a country; I can’t remember the last time I didn’t have to drag Mustang to bed by his ear. I thought  _ I  _ was bad when I got going.” They stretched their arms over their head and let out a yawn so large it should have cracked their jaw, while Minerva was trying to unpack what the bloody hell  _ that  _ meant, “I should get out of your hair, it’s getting late. Thanks for letting me rant, Minnie.”

“Of course, Elric,” the professor replied dryly, “Please do try not to throw Mr. Malfoy into the lake. It might give the giant squid indigestion.”

Ed’s cackling laughter lingered in the hallway long after they’d left her office.

Breakfast at Hogwarts was, usually, Ed’s absolute favorite thing. They’d had wet dreams about a spread even half as large. Any and all things edible that one could dream of was served in an amount sufficient to feed an army.

Wedged between Minerva and Professor Sprout and as far away from Moody and Snape as they could get and stuffing their face was. Pretty much heaven.

Of course, the old coot that passed for a headmaster around the joint had to go and ruin the only time of the weekday that Ed didn’t actively dread.

The Triwizard Tournament -- a series of three challenges between the three largest magical schools in Europe. There hadn’t been one in over two centuries because the competitors had an alarming tendency to  _ die _ . The competitors who, and Ed could not stress this enough, were  _ teenagers _ .

“Have you lost your goddamn mind, you senile old bastard?” Ed was yelling-- Ed was often yelling, but since Al had gotten his body back and Ed had settled into something a little like domesticity it had been mostly for show. To keep up appearances.

They were the Fullmetal Alchemist -- they had a  _ reputation _ .

That being said, they hadn’t felt this kind of white hot rage in a good, long while and this kind of yelling was the kind that they couldn’t control even if they had wanted to. 

Dumbledore sat behind his desk, the picture of serene, like he didn’t have one of the best alchemists to ever come out of Amestris about four seconds from clapping their hands and shoving a stone pillar so far up his ass that maybe they’d find where he stashed his head.

“Ed,” Minerva tried for reproachful but considering that everything about her screamed that the headmaster was on  _ precariously  _ thin ice with her as well, they couldn’t possibly take her seriously.

“Sorry, Minnie,” Ed apologized anyway, on reflex, “but you see how fucking ridiculous this is, right? From what you tell me Potter finds a new and creative way to try and get himself killed every year and now you want to throw  _ this  _ into the mix?”

“I appreciate your concern for my students--”

“ _ My  _ students,” Ed interrupted with a snarl, “Minnie and I are the ones who see them every day, who talk to them, who get to know them, while you sit up here in your tower and survey your kingdom like the fuckin’ uncle in Hamlet.” 

“Professor Elric--”

“Don’t you dare! I don’t even want to  _ be  _ here and I care more about these kids than you do, bringing back this fucking tournament. Kids  _ die  _ in this tournament, Albus!” 

Oh, Ed was  _ seething _ . You could fry an egg on their head. What kind of bullshit school  _ was  _ Hogwarts?

“You’ve had a teacher turn out to be harboring a dark wizard on the back of his head, a  _ giant snake that could paralyze people  _ hanging out in your bathrooms, and an escaped murderer break into your castle. And on that last one, in case you’ve somehow gone and forgotten, your solution was to summon a bunch of soul stealing monsters in cloaks. And  _ now _ you’re telling me you’re going to put three kids up against each other in competitions that can kill them  _ just for the hell of it _ ?”

“The Triwizard Tournament is a time honored tradition,” Dumbledore replied calmly; always so fucking calmly. 

“It wasn’t so honored for the last two hundred and two years,” Ed’s contemptuous drawl was a thing of beauty, envied by every higher official and career military goon they’d ever been forced to bump elbows with. Even Mustang was reluctantly impressed by its power.

Dumbledore didn’t so much as blink, “We’ve taken every precaution--”

“Oh, like I’ve never heard that one before,” Ed’s scoff was a close second to the drawl.

“--to ensure the safety of our students,” the headmaster continued like Ed had never spoken. “And may I remind you, Professor Elric,”  _ barf _ , “that we are only allowing students over the age of seventeen to participate. That makes them legally an adult in the wizarding world.”

“Yeah, well, in the real world that makes them a fucking child.” Ed’s arms crossed over their chest, “As someone who joined the military at  _ twelve  _ you should take my word for it that a teenager is not an adult, no matter how much shit they’ve gone through. All stacking trauma does it give some variety to the nightmares.”

“Your protests have been noted, Professor,” and fuck if Ed didn’t know a dismissal when they heard one, “I do believe Mr. Crouch is ascending my staircase for a meeting, if you’d be so kind as to leave us to it.”

Ed took a deep, centering breath through their nose and turned to Minerva, “Could you help me set up a firecall, please,” they asked, keeping it light and breezy like that was their middle name, “I feel the need to yell in the general direction of the fuhrer and I don’t feel like a letter will really do it justice.”

Minerva raised one perfect eyebrow, “Of course, Ed,” she turned to Dumbledore, “Albus. I’ll see you at dinner.”

It was the most subtle yet effective ‘go fuck yourself’ that Ed had ever seen and they’d gone and married a politician.

Had she not been three times their age and had they not been very, very into men. Well, Ed might have been a little in love. As it were, they needed to introduce this woman to Izumi as soon as humanly possible; sake of the world be damned. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ed has THOUGHTS yall


	3. tell you i need you tell you i set you apart

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i have the day off so holla

Ed wanted it on the record that every mode of magical transportation and communication was _the worst_. Why couldn’t they just use a fuckin’ telephone like everyone else in the goddamn world.

Fuck, Ed was just a country hick by Amestranian standards and even _they’d_ had a phone. 

A fire call was no exception to the rule; it was cool as fuck in theory, and honestly would have been really convenient given Mustang’s proclivities towards fireplaces, but _the execution_? Garbage. 

Absolute, utter trash.

First of all, Ed had to perch on their knees and lean _into_ the fireplace, which wouldn’t have been comfortable even if they _had_ both knees but as it was it made the automail port ache with a dull, persistent throb, and then the actual sensation of the magic made their stomach swoop and their brain try to melt out of their ears.

It was, they had to admit, really good to see Mustang’s face; even more so given that no one in Amestris ever expected their fireplace to start yapping at them and therefore the fuhrer jumped, by Ed’s hasty calculations, a foot and a half out of the chair he was unrepentantly lounging in.

“Where is Riza and her gun when you really need her,” Ed drawled, grinning despite the disorientation; the office looked exactly the same as when Ed had left. Namely, a giant fuckin’ mess. “Seriously, Roy, how has the country not blown up yet?”

Recovering quickly, because he was a bastard, Roy managed to shoot back, “Because you’re currently not in it, dear,” before pushing to his feet and striding towards the fireplace far too gracefully for a man who had just had the bejeezus scared out of him, “ _How_ are you doing this?”

“Magic,” Ed replied, the _duh_ very heavily implied, “Minnie threw some fancy powder into the hearth, rattled off the address I gave her, and then told me to stick my head in the fire.” Honestly, had anyone else told them that they would have assumed it was an assassination attempt and promptly told them to go to hell.

But, well. _Minnie_.

“Minnie?”

“Professor McGonagall,” Ed clarified, and even with how less-than-ideal fire calling had turned out to be, they still felt a little of the tension draining from their shoulders the longer they stared at Mustang’s dumb face, “Her first name is Minerva. All of those words had too many syllables. I am a Busy Bitch, Roy, I don’t have time for that.”

Roy had only met the woman once but he had gotten the Distinct Impression that she was the kind of person who could curse someone very unpleasantly for daring to call her something like _Minnie_ . Then again, it was Ed they were talking about, here. Ed invited Scar to their _wedding_ and the man had _shown up_.

“Of course not, darling,” Roy assured them, settling on his knees in front of the fireplace and wincing as his joints snapped, crackled, and popped. “Not to say I’m not terribly pleased to see your face, made of embers though it may be,” and was _that_ ever slightly horrifying; he was pretty sure he’d had nightmares that looked very similar. Ed, burning. Encased in flames. But they didn’t seem to be in any more pain than usual so it couldn’t be actually burning them, “but I’m assuming you have something of great importance to tell me. Otherwise you would have sent that terrible creature.”

Ed’s owl, loaned to them by the school, was a giant, raven black _monstrosity_ named Minty who hated Roy’s guts with the kind of burning intensity he was used to seeing in his political rivals despite the stupid bird clearly having no spare brain cells to put towards diplomacy. 

“Leave Minty alone,” Ed’s coal eyebrows drew together, “she is a delightful baby. You’re just mean.”

 _“She tried to eat my finger, Ed_ ,” Roy did not screech. He did not. Because that would be severely undignified and he was the goddamn _fuhrer_. 

“I’d like to eat several parts of you,” Ed grinned impishly as Roy laughed, waiting for him to settle before speaking again, “But no, you’re right. There is. Fuck.” They sighed raggedly and Roy’s chest clenched. 

Gods knew he hadn’t wanted to send Ed; after the shit the blonde had pulled he was vehemently against ever letting them out of his sight _again_ . But personal feelings aside there was no actual reason _not_ to. 

Ed was the only choice.

There was no one he trusted _more_ , besides Maes (but even then they were neck and neck). 

No one (actually, literally, no exaggeration) was a better alchemist, Roy _included_.

Ed had already shown a particular talent for teaching, having taken up tutoring several dozen of Al’s university classmates in Theoretical Alchemy and Applicable Mathematics.

Not to mention Ed’s enormous heart, golden moral code, and incapability to not become emotionally attached to everyone they came into contact with.

And, despite their protests on the matter, they had a certain… artfulness to them, when they cared to put in the effort, that had made them quite the foreign ambassador when the occasion called for it.

“What’s going on, love?” Roy leaned a little closer, his back giving a twinge of protest that he steadfastly ignored. He could always dip into Ed’s secret stash of expensive Cretan bath salts later if he really needed to.

Ed groaned and a fiery hand appeared to push their bangs out of their eyes -- Roy wished fiercely that fire calling came in color, there was nothing that quite compared to the gold of Ed’s eyes-- “Okay. So, I’m assuming here that you’ve already heard about all the bullshit that’s happened here the last few years?”

“I’m sure you know more than I do from the student gossip,” Roy admitted, “I only have the headmaster’s take.”

The growl Ed let out sounded nearly feral, “Fuck that guy,” they said, “he’s fuckin’ senile. Someone needs to force him into retirement so Minnie can just take over and run this place properly.” Roy snorted; he had a feeling he was going to have to issue special permits for Professor McGonagall to visit Amestris when this was all over, “I’m just gonna go back three years, because that’s when Potter got here and apparently that kid is a danger magnet.”

“You’re one to talk.”

“Shut the fuck up,” Ed’s face was doing the thing where they were trying very hard not to laugh and encourage him, “so, in 91’ the guy who taught Defense Against The Dark Arts, which the kids call DaDa, by the way, because if I have to know that so do you, came back from some time abroad acting a little squirrely, but no one really thought anything of it.”

“I’m assuming that was a bad move on their part.”

“Anyone ever tell you that you suck at story time?” They waited until Roy mimed dragging a zipper across his lips before they spoke again, “Thank you. You’re right, though. It was a very bad move. You’ve heard of Voldemort, I assume?” Roy simply nodded his assent, “Okay, cool. That saves me like ten minutes of exposition. So this Potter kid I mentioned? It’s _that_ Potter kid. The Boy Who Lived or whatever.”

That. Explained some things.

“That same year, Dumbledore made the executive decision to bring The Philosopher’s Stone to the school.” 

“ _Excuse me?_ ”

“ _Yeah_!” Ed looked homicidal, “Apparently it was created by Flamel himself, but you’ve already heard my rant on how that man is a hack and we both know that the stone was a well-made counterfeit at best.”

“Red water?” Roy asked, feeling vaguely sick.

“I don’t know,” they admitted, “no one could tell me. And the stone was destroyed after all the shit that I’m about to tell you about hit the fan so I couldn’t even see it myself. Apparently it works differently when in combination with magic, though, because _Flamel is still alive_ , the fucking _hack_.”

“That would make him--”

“Six hundred and seventy, yes. Like I said, magic is bullshit and Flamel can eat my ass. _Back to the important stuff_ , 91’ was also the year Potter turned eleven so his ass was arriving at Hogwarts at the same time as the stone and Professor Squirrelly.”

“Shit.” 

“I’m going to skip all of the other stuff and get to the point. Squirrelly was squirrelly because while he was fucking off in Albania or whatever, he ran into the, I dunno, disembodied essance of _Voldemort him-fucking-self_.”

Roy needed a drink.

“He spent the whole goddamn year with the most famous homicidal wizard to ever murder _on the back of his head_.” 

“What?”

“Yeah, hidden right under his goddamn turban. Voldemort wanted Flamel’s bullshit stone to snag himself a new body,” Ed snorted derisively, “naturally it didn’t work. He didn’t actually get far enough to try. There was some magic of love shit? I don’t know. I tuned it out. And that was _just_ the 91’-92’ school year.”

“Ed. What the fuck did I send you into?” 

It was possibly the smuggest look he’d ever seen on his spouse, “Hopefully a situation I can _fix_ . In ‘92 there was an honest to fuck Basilisk loose in the school, controlled by the ghost of Voldemort’s younger self, _somehow_ using The Littlest Weasley as a conduit. Potter fought the fucking thing in a secret chamber under one of the bathrooms. That year the DaDa teacher was a narcissistic asshole who was actually totally useless and lied on his resume. He would use magic to erase the memories of the people who actually did the shit he claimed to have done.”

Roy needed eight drinks.

“93’ was only marginally better. They finally got in a competent DaDa teacher, but it got out that he was a werewolf and the parents made such a fuckin’ stink about it that the poor guy had to resign. Apparently there’s a huge stigma around that shit here? Makes no sense to me, but I would love to meet the guy he sounds _rad_ . Then a guy escaped Wizard Jail for the first time ever and somehow made it all the way to Hogwarts, supposedly to kill Potter but Minnie says that’s all bullshit and the guy was framed. Dumbledore’s way of handling it was to have a bunch of _dementors_ at the school. You know, those things that make people relive their worst memories and suck souls like I suck your--”

“Come home,” Roy pleaded, interrupting what was sure to be a very colorful euphemism, “fuck international relations. That country is insane.”

“No.” Ed shook his head, “This year Dumbledore has brought back a tournament between all three Big schools in Europe for the first time in two hundred years. They stopped it because the tasks are dangerous as hell and kids kept _dying_ in them, but _Albus Goddamn Dumbledore_ can’t take a hint and decided to put out a welcome mat for more bullshit and just invite it in for tea. And, returning to usual form, the Defense teacher is a fuckin’ _lunatic_. I can’t leave the kids to deal with that on their own.”

Enormous Heart, Golden Morals, and Inability To Not Become Attached: 895.

Ed’s Sense Of Self Preservation: -2

“Of course you can’t,” Roy sighed, “and I do see why you decided to use the fireplace rather than write me a novel.”

“Or three,” Ed snorted, “one for each year.”

“When does the competition begin?” 

“The other schools get here October 30th and apparently the competitors are chosen on Halloween. Which isn’t at all ominous.”

“Not at all,” Roy agreed.

Ed sighed, “They put an age limit on it, at least. No one under seventeen can enter.”

“ _Seventeen?”_ Roy hissed, “That’s a _child_!”

“ _That’s what I said!_ ” Roy got the distinct impression that Ed was throwing their hands up into the air in exasperation, “I screamed it at the old coot. Fuckin’ children. They’re babies, Roy. Just because I saved the world at seventeen doesn’t mean it should be the _norm_ . I am living proof, I am _fucked up_.”

Roy’s expression softened; he couldn’t help it. Of course Ed thought that. Of course all they saw were the rough edges and the scars. They wouldn’t see how strong they were, or how resilient. How for every jagged edge there was a glowing, reflective surface from which shone the sun itself. 

“You’re perfect,” he said.

Looking like a deer caught in headlights, Ed sucked in a sharp breath through their teeth, “I hate it when you do that,” they said.

“I know,” Roy smiled serenely, “I’m not going to stop, though, so you might as well get used to it. It has been three years since you kissed me in that elevator, you know.”

“If I had known it was going to turn you into such a _sap_ I would have reconsidered,” but there was no heat behind the jab; something in the very back of Ed’s eyes, visible to anyone who knew them well enough even though the embers, settled into something that almost resembled calm. “I’m gonna go, I have a class at eight and my knees are fuckin’ pissed I’ve been crouched here this long.” They paused, looking to each side of them like they were about to cross a busy street, “I love you, you bastard.”

Roy’s smile stretched even wider, his eyes crinkling at the edges, “I love you too, brat. Sleep sweet.”

“Sleep sweet,” Ed parroted back, and with one last lingering look, like they were trying to memorize what Roy looked like in that exact moment, they were gone and the fireplace was just a fireplace once again.

Letting out a harsh breath through his nose and falling back onto his ass on the carpet, Roy stared at the ceiling, at the glow in the dark stars that Maes had helped Elicia paste to the plaster so “At least Roy would have something pretty to look at while he was procrastinating”, trying to calm his heart into something that resembled calm.

No dice.

“Riza!” He called.

“Sir,” she appeared in the doorway like a phantom; a scarily competent phantom with an illogical amount of firearms hidden on her person at all times.

“I need you to draft a letter to the headmaster of Hogwarts,” he said, plan forming as he spoke, “I think it would be a good show of good faith if the fuhrer of Amestris was made one of the judges in… whatever tournament is happening this fall.” 

Too observant as ever, Riza narrowed her eyes, “Why?” she even dropped the ‘sir’. This wasn’t a commander speaking to his subordinate, this was Roy talking to a friend.

He was, after all, sitting on the ground.

“Ed’s told me some troubling things about the school; I want to see them for myself. Possibly give Ed some backup,” he sent her a sly glance out of the corner of his good eye, “I’m sure you won’t find a dearth of volunteers for this particular envoy.”

Riza’s eyes rolled, but it was an affectionate gesture, “I’ll see what I can do, sir. Now finish that stack of paperwork;” she had to speak over her superior’s dramatic groan as he flopped backwards onto the floor, “I want to go home at a reasonable hour tonight and neither of us are leaving until you’ve dotted all of your ‘i’s.”

“Slavedriver,” Roy mumbled as she turned to leave the way she had come.

“Slacker,” she called back over her shoulder. 

The door shut before he could possibly retort. Not that he actually had anything to say back to that.

It took him too long to actually haul himself back to his feet and stumble on aching knees back to his desk, where the paperwork Riza was undoubtedly having an extremely torrid affair with sat waiting. 

There was tension along the Drachman border.

General Armstrong had sent a telegram from Briggs that was _technically_ stamped urgent, but she had used that trick before just to send him an impressively artistic image of an extremely rude hand gesture -- it had been a slow week in the north, apparently. The woman was terrifying but even she was susceptible to boredom. (Ed had the image professionally framed and it hung proudly in their guest bathroom.)

Cretan trade routes needed to be finalized.

Ling had sent word from Xing about a possible application of Alkhestry in Amestranian hospitals.

But, most importantly, he had a letter to Ed to finish.

If all went well he would send it in time for it to arrive a scant few minutes before he did. Just for the pure entertainment of watching his spouse slowly redden and then erupt. Maybe he’d even get Ed to wave their arms around -- it had been a while since he’d pushed their buttons so thoroughly.

There had to be _some_ recompense for their little trick in the fireplace.

He scanned what he’d already written -- after finally hearing Ed’s voice for the first time in several weeks, and thus soothing the ache in his chest to a dull pang every once in a while, the beginning was embarrassingly sappy.

However, he’d meant every word; removing it, or starting over felt like a disservice. 

Pen in hand, he picked up where he left off.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> did i make a whole chapter that was just ed recounting shit so i can bitch about dumbledore  
> ye  
> happy fuckin breakin and enterin bunny day


	4. try to quiet the voices inside your head; we cant compete with all that

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i got a day off??? weird

When the doddering headmaster wasn’t actively trying to ruin Ed’s entire fucking  _ l i f e _ , breakfast was still the most important meal of the day.

It was also, coincidentally, when the mail came.

The top letter in the formidable stack dropped at the teacher’s table by Minty (who was an angel, despite what Mustang said) was from Winry, naturally. A response to Ed asking her if it was possible for their automail to actually freeze off of their body if the castle got any draftier. 

It was a two-pager, and while Ed expected it to be a bunch of technical engineering jargon that they had only the barest hope of understanding, what Winry had actually delivered was one full page, colored doodle of Ed being smacked in the head with a very large wrench. 

Ed’s resulting bark of laughter was loud enough that a couple of the students seated at the ends of their house tables closest to the teachers looked up in alarm.

They couldn’t even scrape together the decency to pretend to be embarrassed.

Fuck, if Ed had been into women they would have married Winry so hard the second they got back to the right universe.

Mentally, they added Winry to the list of people they were going to introduce to McGonagall.

Physically, they turned to the professor of transfiguration, “Hey, Minnie,” Minerva, who had spent enough time with them to recognize that it was imperative she pay attention  _ immediately _ , turned while still chewing her toast to look at the art Ed was brandishing like a proud parent.

Minerva swallowed her toast, “Is that--” she stopped to take a deep breath through her nose and Ed’s glee only rose. Riling people up would always be fun, alleged adulthood be damned, “Is that supposed to be you getting murdered?”

“Not murdered,” Ed waved her off, “Win has hit me with more wrenches than I bother to count. This is just her response to me asking about the possibility of metal limbs falling off due to drafty ass castles.”

“Is that a concern of yours?” Minerva’s pitch went up an octave and  _ oh _ , yeah, they hadn’t told anyone about the whole. Automail thing. No use in revealing your secret weapon until absolutely necessary. 

“She’s a mechanic,” Ed said easily; they weren’t  _ lying _ , “I like throwing scenarios at her and seeing what she comes up with. If she thinks I’m being an idiot,” they waved the picture, “blunt force trauma.”

Professor Sprout,  _ Pomona _ , Ed remembered being instructed to call her, spoke up, “Your friends sound absolutely terrifying.” 

From anyone else, Ed may have taken offense. But Pomona was head of Yellow, the house that emphasized loyalty and friendship, and her voice was so damn sweet that it was obvious she hadn’t meant it in a  _ bad  _ way.

Grinning toothily, Ed turned to her, “Oh, they are. But I’m the scariest of the lot, so it all balances out.”

Down the table, Snape scoffed loudly over his eggs. 

Offense: officially taken.

“Have you got something to say,  _ Severus _ ?” Ed asked, loudly, because Snape started it, they’d all seen it, and Ed would not be held responsible, “Because I don’t know if there will be enough soap left for your mouth after washing all that grease out of your hair, but I’d be more than happy to try.”

Snape turned several interesting shades of red and opened his mouth to retort, but the Red table’s howling laughter drowned out anything he could have possibly said. Yellow and Blue were slightly quieter but still snickering.

Half of Green was actively trying to murder Ed with their eyes while the other half were trying very, very hard not to join their classmates in unrestrained mirth.

Ed considered it a complete win.

The second page of Winry’s letter was actually concern for their well being, a demand for them to come home in the very near future so she could tinker with their limbs, and an update on how Al was  _ actually  _ handling their absence, as well as a bit in Granny Pinako’s handwriting ordering them to not be stupid for “once in their damn life, Ed, I mean it”. 

Ed was never stupid, the old hag was losing it. Stupid found them a lot, but they were not, inherently, stupid. They just ended up in some weird goddamn situations that were not at all their fault, ever.

The one time with the pinata didn’t count.

Mostly because Pinako didn’t know about that one, unless Al had blabbed. And if Al had blabbed then Ed was about to be the  _ only  _ child of Trisha Elric.

The next letter was, of course, from their sweet, precious baby brother who they loved more than anything in the world. 

The first line was: “ _ I’m so sorry! I told Granny about the pinata.” _

Their sweet, precious baby brother who was  _ dead to them. _

Everything else was pretty standard; Mustang’s entire unit had gotten together to send Ed a barely comprehensible letter that still managed to have them in stitches.

Mustang himself wanted weekly reports, the bastard. Like Ed didn’t have enough paperwork. They had to  _ grade  _ things. And they had to do it while not losing all faith in the children they were supposed to be teaching and throwing themselves off of the astronomy tower. 

But there, thicker than the others and hidden at the bottom and free of the stiffness of the Fuhrer’s Official Stationary, hid another envelope addressed in that familiar, too damn loopy handwriting.

_ Edward, _

_ Let me preface this by saying that the house is far too quiet without you shouting obscenities at all of the appliances and tripping over thin air, and that we can safely and with scientific evidence trace the ‘schmoop’ that is about to occur back to that fact. _

_ I miss you. _

Scrawled into the margins, squished, like it was added after the fact:  _ The firecall was nice but it didn’t do your beauty any justice at all. _

Mustang must have already been writing this when Ed had called the previous week.

_ I miss your smile, and I miss how your nose wrinkles when you laugh. I miss rolling over and seeing your face in the morning, or, alternately, rolling over and waking up to a book on whatever you’re taken with that week shoved into my spine.  _

_ I miss how familiar your footsteps are; I think I would recognize them even if both of your legs were flesh. _

_ I miss early mornings, staying in bed until the very last second and scrambling to get ready and brewing the coffee directly into our mugs. _

_ For heaven's sake, Edward, I even miss your snoring. _

Ed’s lips curled into a scowl, though they couldn’t quite tamper down the red-hot blush flaring to life on their cheeks. Why did they marry the bastard again?

_ And yes, I am aware that you do not, nor have you ever, snored. It just turns out that the extraordinarily vivid auditory hallucinations I've been having for the last three years have disappeared along with you. _

_ If this continues on too long I fear I may find myself in possession of a  _ **_dog_ ** _. Perhaps a large, yellow mutt who sheds on all of my good clothes and doesn't obey an order to save their life, even when the order is  _ **_clearly_ ** _ being issued because I love them very much and am concerned for their wellbeing.  _

_ I think I'll name them Ted.  _

**Bastard** .

_ Alphonse has been calling the house when he knows I'm not home to hear your voice on the machine -- I only know this because I had to run home over lunch one day last week and caught him. If you happen to have access to a landline somewhere in magical England I suggest you give him a ring. Or perhaps spontaneously appear in his fireplace; I’m sure I’d hear his shout all the way in Central. _

_ Riza says hello; she refused to be a part of the rest of the unit's "butchery of the Amestranian language" and thus asked me to pass on her regards. I cannot say I blame her. Jean and Haymens ended up in an arm wrestling match over the pen. _

_ Since you've been gone I've come to realize that no one gives a single damn about my authority here unless you're standing behind me glaring them into submission. _

_ I fear if you consider taking the offer I know will be coming for a permanent position at the school Amestris may be in dire peril -- just like I also know that you will, in fact consider it. You can deny it all you want but I know you. You adore your kids and, if you can get that ‘decrepit old fossil’ to grow a brain cell or two, would probably accept the offer. Possibly just to avoid your political duties for another nine months. _

_ Don’t think I don’t also know your game, love. _

_ Regardless, I’m sure I’ll know soon enough. _

_ Your Loving Bastard. _

At least he’d called himself a bastard that time and saved Ed the trouble. Still, they carefully folded the letter and tucked it into the inside pocket of their jacket. They kept all of the letters from Mustang -- from all of them, really. Sense of wanderlust notwithstanding, they’d been settled down in Central for so long that they’d forgotten what it was like to be homesick.

“Who was that one from, Ed?” Pomona asked, peering curiously over her goblet of juice. Ed didn’t know how they did it -- Minerva had tea, Pomona had pumpkin juice ( _ gag _ ), Albus was sipping on what was probably a big ol’ cup of terrible ideas. 

Ed had to bribe the house elves for decent coffee.

“No one important,” Ed lied, smiling crookedly.

“Well, I hope that isn’t true. Otherwise I came all the way here for nothing.” 

The Great Hall burst into whispers; Granger in particular clapped her hand over her mouth and shoved at Weasley’s shoulder, hissing “ _ That’s the fuhrer of Amestris! _ ” over and over again like she couldn’t believe it.

Hell, Ed couldn’t believe it. 

But Roy Mustang was leaning casually on the wall next to the enormous wooden doors at the front of the hall; dressed down (for him) in slacks and a shirt and tie, a woolen coat thrown over one of his arms. 

“Professor Dumbledore was kind enough to offer me a position as a judge during the Triwizard Tournament. It seemed much more interesting than pushing some papers, wouldn’t you agree, Professor Mustang?”

Ed’s face reddened, the shade only enhanced by the stark contrast of their golden hair, left down after their hasty shower that morning. They’d forgotten their elastic in their rush to make it to breakfast on time and hadn’t gotten around to transmuting a new one.

At least they could use it to hide their face.

“I already told you, bastard,” they called out, glaring fiercely through their fringe, “I’m not changing my name. If you’re that desperate to match you can just take Elric when we get home.”

The whispers turned into outright yelling. 

“Is Professor Elric  _ the first lady?” _ The question came from the Blue table and Ed’s hackles rose like an angry cat.

“Ten points from The Blue Team!” Ed hissed, pointing without looking away from the figure in the front of the room,“You guys are on thin fuckin’ ice!”

Mustang had to walk closer, through the hall and passed the intense scrutiny of the entire student body, to be heard over the yelling, “Gracious, Ed, do you kiss your husband with that mouth?” 

“Not anymore I don’t since I am getting  _ divorced _ ,” Ed told him, leaning over the table to get eye level with their husband; it was strange, they didn’t think they’d ever seen the top of his head, “I just got a letter from you, you couldn’t warn me?”

“Where’s the fun in that?” Mustang’s grin was cheeky but his eyes were so unbearably soft that Ed wanted to wrap them self up in those navy blue oceans like a blanket and just  _ stay  _ there for the foreseeable future. 

“Well for one, I don’t get my relationship outted in front of all the fuckin’ kids I gotta deal with today. Congratulations, asshole, you just ruined any chance these dipshits had of learning anything today. It’s all going to be ‘ _ fuhrer Mustang _ ’ this, and ‘ _ what was your wedding like’  _ that. If anyone asks me if I wore a dress I’m going to deck you.”

Mustang blinked slowly, grin sliding seamlessly into a smile that crinkled those cashmere soft eyes, “But you did wear a dress. It looked stunning on you. I’ve had dreams about those buttons in the back; the ones that went all the way down your spine?” 

The blush on Ed’s cheeks flared back to life with a vengeance, “Shut the fuck up. The kids don’t know that I’m fluid -- I don’t think they even know it’s something that exists. I’ve been presenting as male the whole time I’ve been here.”

Eyebrows crinkling, Mustang opened his mouth to say something, probably, about how bad that was for Ed’s mental health and well being or something, but the headmaster decided that it was finally time to poke a hole into the metaphorical bubble that had appeared the second Roy got within touching distance of his spouse.

“Fuhrer Mustang,” he said, and there was a boom in his voice that hadn’t been there since the opening feast; magic, clearly. It reverberated in Ed’s skull like shrapnel and had them wincing, “Welcome,” he smiled benignly, “it was so wonderful to hear that you took an interest in our tournament.” 

Mustang turned, his side pressed flush against the side of the teacher’s table, somehow managing to look nonchalant and in-control, despite being out of his element and having to crane his neck to look up at Dumbledore, “Thank you for having me,” he said, slipping back into the Charming Diplomat persona that had gotten him through a coup and a half and three decades of friendship with Riza Hawkeye, “and for accommodating my envoy as well. My position makes it nearly impossible for me to go anywhere alone.”

“My pleasure, my dear boy,” Dumbledore's eyes twinkled behind his stupid bifocals, “you all are more than welcome to join us for the remainder of breakfast. As you can see, there is more than enough to go around.”

Smiling calmly, Mustang lifted one gloved hand and snapped, a pillar of flame rising from his fingers for a fleeting moment before disappearing like it had never been there in the first place.

Falman appeared from an alcove on the East side of the room, Havoc from the West. Breda and Fuery strode calmly through the front door.

Ed’s eyes narrowed, “Where’s Hawkeye?” they demanded, “I know  _ damn  _ well that woman wouldn’t let you out of Amestris without her. She barely lets you go to the _grocery store_ without her.”

The woman in question dropped from somewhere above their heads a moment later, landing in a carefully controlled crouch with barely a huff of air to imply the impact. 

“You’re right,” Riza said as she rose to her feet, brushing imaginary dust from her pants, “I wouldn’t.” She turned to face Dumbledore, her mouth set in a grim line, “Your security is terrible,” she said bluntly, pointing up, “I was hiding in the rafters with a gun to your head for half an hour before the Fuhrer made his appearance. It looks pretty but it affords  _ far  _ too much cover for anyone who thinks to attack from above.”

The silence in the room was nearly unbearable; it was the most fun Ed had had since they’d arrived at Hogwarts. 

“Is this the one who hits you with wrenches?” Minerva asked slowly when it didn’t appear that anyone else was going to speak.

“No,” Ed said, shaking their head with a grin, “This is the one that threatens to shoot Mustang when he procrastinates too long.” They paused, “Or forgets our anniversary.”

“That was  _ one _ time,” Roy sighed back with the air of a man who had suffered hard and long. 

“Because she almost took out your kneecaps,” Ed flipped their hair over one shoulder, preening.

“Goodness,” McGonagall breathed.

“You’ll get along great,” Ed assured her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> roy would actually name the dog Armageddon. Maggie Mae(s) for short. thank you for coming to my ted talk


	5. when the violence causes silence we must be mistaken

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> im working a grocery store during the apocalypse please kill me

As surprising as it was, Ed couldn’t even pretend to be upset about the arrival of Their Team. Because no matter how far they spread as they rose through ranks -- Ed with their own collection of underlings, Riza and Jean still diligently keeping Mustang out of trouble, Falman stationed in Briggs, and Fuery and Breda stuck with respective high-level generals that they were Totally Not Spying On -- they were The Mustang Unit. There was something unbreakable about the shit they’d gone through together. The End Of The World tends to do that. 

Hell, Jean had almost lost his  _ legs _ in the clusterfuck, and still remained at Roy’s six and came around to tug on the ends of Ed’s ponytail and call them Boss in front of their minions, and now their students.

Having them around felt Safe and Good in a way Ed hadn’t realized they’d been missing at Hogwarts, like slipping on their favorite sweater (the incredibly soft, charcoal gray one they’d pilfered from Roy’s closet the first time they’d stayed over). 

All that was missing was Al. 

Barreling into their classroom five minutes late (with coffee, of course, the reason they’d been late. Dobby, one of the elves in the kitchen, was chatty but Adorable and Ed would die for him) to find Mustang standing in front of their brats demonstrating his personal niche of alchemy was a whole new kind of  _ something _ .

If they hadn’t already been heels over head for the bastard, that probably would have done it.

“You’re late, Fullmetal,” Roy chastened with a smirk, extinguishing the flame with a flourish. 

“I’m caffeinated and there is not a single brat in this room who would prefer that I was punctual.” Ed dropped their bag on the desk and stretched their arms above their head, “Speaking of the brats -- good morning.”

“Good morning.” Ninety two percent of the room parroted back -- Malfoy and his goons remaining pointedly silent.

Fine, whatever. They’d won over the rest of the kiddos; someone actively caring about them and their interests was like catnip to children. If Ed’s shit ass childhood and adolescence had taught them anything it was how to make kids feel like someone gave a shit -- they just had to do the exact opposite of everything that had been done to them.

“Everyone enjoy their weekend? It was a Hogsmeade one, wasn’t it?” Ed had, thankfully, avoided the specific kind of hell that was  _ chaperoning  _ one of those ordeals and had also spent the weekend in  _ bed _ . 

Not sleeping.

Hence the excellent mood.

A chorus of affirmations. 

Ed grinned. No one had better trained brats than they did. Specifically this group -- the fourth years. Red and Green. 

“Good, good.” Ed hip-checked their husband to the side to assume their usual perch on the edge of their desk. Because chairs were for squares and straight people (as highlighted when Roy, a square, dropped into the chair behind the desk), “Any troubles with the homework?”

A few grumbles; Potter raised a hand and wiggled it back and forth.  _ So so. _

They’d expected as much -- it was the first time they were having them try their hand at actual alchemy. Ed had provided the circles, of course, they were nowhere  _ near  _ composing their own, and they were simply trying to mold a hunk of clay into a gargoyle. 

Just a change of shape -- nothing too advanced. No changing chemical compositions in Alchemy 101; though they’d bet that Weasley could manage it after a few attempts that blew off his eyebrows. 

Everyone had a few attempts that blew off their eyebrows. It was a learning experience. It’s how you learned not to try to balance Mercury with fuckin’ aluminum like a  _ dumbass _ .

“Well, let’s not waste any time then,” a quick clap and a long table erupted in the middle of the room, “pass ‘em down and load ‘em up. I’ll take a look at them later tonight. In the meantime, what was it in particular that you guys had trouble with?”

Ed didn’t want to brag; but they liked to think that they’d gotten the hang of the whole teaching gig. As long as they imagined that every child in the room was Al it was a piece of cake.

Plus, they actually liked a good portion of the kids.

The Weasleys (and  _ wow  _ that red hair gene was strong there, huh? No number of Punnett Squares could account for  _ that  _ shit) were a good lot. Ed maybe had a soft spot for the Littlest of the bunch; she’d seen some shit when she was only eleven and Ed could  _ relate _ . It was, as the children would say, a  _ mood _ .

Granger wasn’t so bad once she got over the oppressive need to know  _ everything, right now, immediately _ . Also something Ed could relate to. They’d had a talk; she’d chilled out. Now instead of asking fourteen thousand questions during actual class time, she’d scribble out her most pressing questions at the bottom of all of her essays and Ed would answer them back in the same fashion before handing it back. 

The 4th Year Weasley? Absolutely dyslexic. Also, once you spoke his language? Brilliant. Ed liked him, no strings attached. And Ron seemed to like Ed back; shooting them appreciative glances whenever Little Weasley ( _ Ginny _ , they needed to remember that, christ) wandered up to them with that haunted look behind her eyes and Ed immediately wrapped an arm around her shoulders and led her to the nearest bench.

They were in no way qualified to help anyone cope with their trauma (like, ever), but they were a good listener nowadays, and sometimes she just needed someone to talk at who wouldn’t judge her or pity her. Someone who  _ got  _ it. Who understood what it was like to be so, so young and think that you’ve found the magic solution only to have it nearly kill you. 

Ed didn’t divulge how they knew  _ exactly  _ how that felt, and Ginny didn’t push. She just appreciated that there was finally someone there who did.

Longbottom was, literally, the sweetest most sensitive child Ed had ever met. He reminded them so much of Al it made their heart hurt sometimes. Magic didn’t come as easily to him as it did to some of his classmates; a fact that Malfoy loved to hone in on and use as a weapon, but he made up for it in sheer determination.

There were others that Ed had decided weren’t completely hopeless -- a couple of Green 4th years like Zambini and Nott. 

A  _ scarily  _ competent group of Red 5th year girls on the… broom, magic sports team. 

Montague and Flint (Green); Regular Size Creevey and Itty Bitty Creevey (Red), both Patil twins (Red and Blue respectively); Finch, MacMillin, and Smith (Yellow); Chang, Edgecomb, and Lovegood (Blue). 

Mostly, Ed actually kind of enjoyed teaching the brats. 

They would still love to feed Malfoy to the giant squid, though. How could one child be such an  _ asshole _ ?

With all of the homework turned in and shifted against the far wall, Ed peeked over their shoulder at their casually lounging husband, “You just gonna stay there all lesson?”

“That’s the plan,” Roy grinned his most roguish grin. Ed heard distinct teenage sighs in the front of the room.

Fuckin’ dick.

“Great,” Ed sighed, turning back to face their emotionally compromised fourteen year olds, “Okay, brats, we’re just going to ignore the peanut gallery, all right? I know he seems charming but it’s all a front and he’s actually the  _ worst _ , so--”

“Isn’t he, like, the leader of your nation?” Zambini interrupted, quirking one eyebrow in challenge. Like Ed would ever turn down the opportunity to roast  _ Roy Mustang. _

“Sure is,” they answered easily, “but when you’ve known someone since before you hit puberty it kind of ruins the illusion. Also, he leaves the cap off of the toothpaste and refuses to hang up a wet towel so it can dry properly so I don’t know who the fuck voted for him but I sure didn’t.”

“No,” Roy answered from behind them, infinitely amused, “but that’s only because you timed your interdimensional travel poorly and showed up three days  _ after  _ the election.”

“Timed his  _ what _ ?” Granger breathed, looking up at Ed like she’d never seen them before.

“Their, actually,” Roy corrected sharply, “Ed has, unbelievably, been too polite to get into gender politics in the classroom, but they prefer to be addressed gender neutrally.”

For fucks  _ sake _ . Ed rolled their eyes towards the ceiling; they’d had Minerva enchant it for them. It showed a bright blue sky, spattered with lazily traversing, fluffy clouds. The perfect Resembool day. 

“Roy,” they said slowly, measuredly, not looking at their husband, “didn’t we have a talk about this?”

“Sorry, dear.”

No, he wasn’t.

“No, you’re not.” Ed looked back to their brats, “Okay, since he seems determined to derail  _ every  _ lesson plan I’ve made for the week. Ugh, I can’t believe I’m doing this. Does anyone have any interdimensional travel or, Truth help me,  _ gender  _ related questions?”

Every hand in the room shot up.

Fucking Roy.

* * *

If one positive came out of the whole ordeal, it was Ed finally getting to wear their favorite flippy, pencil skirt around the castle. They looked  _ so  _ good in the flippy skirt. So good, in fact, that they decided to wear it on the 30th.

Beauxbatons and Durmstrang may be variables bursting with dangerous potential that Ed couldn’t even begin to predict, but by Truth was their ass going to look  _ amazing  _ when they faced said possible danger for the first time.

They sipped their coffee slowly, seated at the Red table for the morning, wedged between Little Weasley and Itty Bitty Creevey. They were the only teacher to ever sit at the house tables, but Ginny had looked especially haunted that morning and like hell Ed was going to leave her to the overly excited wolves.

It all worked out anyway; Riza had taken their spot at the teacher’s table, chatting amiably with Minerva (because Ed was right; those two got along like a house on fire). 

Roy looked marginally less comfortable than Ed, trying to fend off Granger's volley of questions. Ed let it go on for approximately fifteen minutes before they sighed and set their mug down.

“Hermione,” they admonished gently, waiting until she turned to face them with a sheepish expression, “what’s the rule?”

She sighed, her whole body deflating with the exhale, “Reign it in before the second cup of coffee.”

“Thank you,” Ed said, and took a moment to bask in Roy’s appreciative adoration before reaching out to grab the pot and pouring themself their second cup of coffee, “You may now continue.”

Roy’s betrayed expression was  _ so  _ much better than the adoration -- payback was a bitch.

Beside them, Ginny let out a weak giggle, dropping her head to rest against Ed’s flesh arm, “Nice,” she said, approvingly.

“What’s the point of being married if I can’t torture him every once in a while?” Ed asked her, grinning when her resulting laugh was just a little stronger than the first. “Besides, she has important questions about the government that need to be answered if she’s going to be Minister of Magic by the time she’s thirty.” 

Across the table, Hermione Granger whipped around to face Ed, her lips parted in a silent gasp and her chestnut eyes as round as dinner plates and shining with sudden tears, “Do you really think so?”

Oh fuck, it was too early for Feelings.

Still.

“Absolutely,” Ed nodded carefully so as to not dislodge Ginny from their shoulder, “if I know anything, it’s what a future leader looks like,” out of the corner of their eye, they saw Roy preen, “You’ve got what it takes -- you’re viciously smart, you’re determined as all hell, you never half ass a single thing, you ask the right questions. You’re on the right track, Granger. And I’ll help as much as I can.”

Roy sighed fondly -- Enormous Heart, Golden Morals, and Inability To Not Become Attached: 896.

“Shut up, Mustang, or I’ll have one of the kids charm your hair lime green. It would clash terribly with everything else about you.” Ed pointed at their husband without moving their eyes from Hermione, “He’ll help too, he just thinks he’s too cool to say it out loud.”

Sniffling quietly, Hermione nodded her head, dark curls bouncing with the jerky movement, “Thank you,” she said quietly.

Ed grinned at her, and turned to Potter and Ron, “And as for you two,” they sat to attention  _ so fast _ , it was awesome, “she’s going to need people in her corner. Ones who don’t let her think too lowly of herself but will also smack some sense into her if need be,” Ed waited until they nodded to continue, “you’ve got potential. But you’re also shit scared of her, which is understandable, she’s terrifying,” that one earned a wet giggle from the girl in question, “you’ve gotta get the fuck over that. Also, neither of you want to be Aurors; please for the love of fuck stop trying to make yourself  _ believe  _ that you want to be because you think it’s expected.”

“How the  _ bloody hell _ \--” Ron started, face gone paler than parchment; Ed waved a hand.

“I joined the Amestrian Military when I was 12 as a State Alchemist -- not so fondly referred to as Dog’s Of The Military at the time. It was seemed like the fastest way to get what I needed; and it was, I guess,” they shifted uncomfortably, “I think? I don’t know, I can’t see into alternate futures. Either way, trust me. Find what  _ you’re _ passionate about, what  _ you  _ want to do. You want to make a difference, that’s obvious. You want to make the world a better place. There are other ways to do that besides turning yourself into a weapon. Especially you, Harry,” Ed softened their expression when they turned to Potter, “Harry, I get where you’re coming from. I’m not going to go into the gory details, but I  _ get  _ it, okay? The same way I get where Little Weasley,” they shook their arm, earning a short hum of annoyance from Ginny who was watching the proceedings like it was an interesting movie, “is coming from. I’m telling you -- think it over. If you still want to do it after a  _ whole lot  _ of introspection, then okay. Give it a shot. But do not base all of your classes and tests on the assumption that becoming an Auror is the  _ only  _ end goal.” 

A half-muffled noise that sounded like it had been punched out of a mostly deflated whoopee cushion came from behind Ed’s seat; they knew who would be there before they turned around based on the looks on the other’s faces. 

“Mr. Malfoy,” Ed said genially, half turning to face the blonde boy who was slowly turning such a deep shade of crimson Ed could almost see his eyebrows, “are you alright?”

It was the most uncertain Ed had ever seen the kid -- something was wrong. Something was so, so very wrong. The look on his face was almost  _ scared _ and his fists were clenched so tightly into his robes that his knuckles had turned a stark white.

Malfoy opened his mouth and closed it again. He nodded once, teeth clenched until it  _ must  _ have hurt his jaw, before turning on his heel and striding towards the exit of the Hall in such carefully controlled movements it was clear he was trying very hard not to simply bolt.

What, and Ed could not stress this enough,  _ the fuck _ ? 

They were on their feet before they even registered moving -- there was something wrong with that child, and while he may have been an asshole, he was still a child. 

“Roy, don’t let any of them follow me to eavesdrop,” they ordered, straightening their spine to really impart just how much they were Absolutely Not Kidding to the gathered Red students, “especially the twins. They’re wily ones.” 

And they followed Malfoy from the Hall, flippy skirt swishing around their legs and the heels of their boots clacking gently on the marble floor. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> one part crackfic one part feelings   
> all me giving these children the advice any competent adult would have given them


	6. when the villains fall the kingdom never weeps

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ok so this is double the normal length but i got kind of incensed while in the process of writing it so 
> 
> on that note hey kids lets not kidnap other peoples badass character introductions and like not even t r y to hide it??? can we not?? like everyone play nice please thanks :)

Draco Malfoy, surprisingly enough, was actually very good at hide and seek. Had Ed been anyone else, aside from the notable exception of Riza Hawkeye (though it should go without saying that Riza Hawkeye was the standing exemption for just about everything), he may have even managed to escape having to deal with his feelings like a responsible human.

It was Ed, however, who was hellbent on tracking the Slytherin student down, and track him down Ed did. 

Ed found Malfoy sitting by the lake, for reasons that went completely beyond the alchemist’s understanding. 

It was cold as hell as they settled next to the kid on the grass, tucking their knees underneath them to both retain their modesty (what little of it was still hanging on for dear life) and to keep themselves from having to use alchemy to have to dry their own ass. 

Again.

Ed had a habit of not looking before they sat. It was an ongoing problem. They were working on it.

Malfoy didn’t say anything; just kept his silvery eyes on the way the wind gently swept the water to it’s whim. It was quiet, so early. The sun had barely risen. Not even the squid could be bothered to make an appearance.

Shame; Ed liked that creature. 

Double shame; Ed finally had Malfoy within throwing distance of the water and neither the squid nor their desire to murder the kid could be found. Sundays were supposedly the day of rest, but geez. 

“You know,” Ed finally said after a solid two minutes of tense silence, “this is the first time I’ve spent more than thirty seconds with you and haven’t considered murder.”

It earned them a snort from the other blonde, “You know,” he began, copying Ed’s tone just about perfectly, “that’s not the first time I’ve been told that.”

Ed chuckled softly, leaning back on their hands so they could tilt their head back to gaze at the cloudy sky, “If you weren’t such an asshole all of the time,” they said, “maybe less people would fantasize about feeding you to  _ Architeuthis Dux _ .”

“If I could be less of an asshole all of the time,” Malfoy drawled, “maybe I would.” The bitterness was hard to miss; but Ed knew enough about bullshit posturing to catch the faint threads of longing weaved into it.

Lolling their head to look at the boy, Ed found him still pointedly staring very intently at the lake; alright. He didn’t need to look at Ed for this conversation; he just had to participate. 

“This persona you’ve created? It’s not who you are,” they said mildly, “it never was. It may seem terrifying to just drop it and start over but trust me, it’s going to feel like the world’s been taken from your shoulders.”

“I’m a  _ Malfoy _ ,” he hissed the name through his teeth, like the snake he wore proudly on his robes, “This is who I have to be. I’m not like… like  _ Potter _ . I don’t get to make the choice; the world decided who I was a long time ago. My  _ father _ decided the moment he took the dark lord’s mark. The bloody hat decided when it stuck me in Slytherin. People look at me and they see…” he sighed, looking down at his hands, at his fingers curled into claws and digging up the dew damp grass at his sides, “Evil.”

“Whoa, there, Atlas. You are fourteen years old,” Ed pushed themselves up, straightening their spine and taking the chance, reaching out and settling their flesh hand on Malfoy -- on Draco’s shoulder, “Draco, you’re  _ fourteen _ . Nothing is set in stone yet; nothing. You’re still growing, literally and figuratively. It’s time for you to figure out who  _ you  _ are, not who anyone else expects you to be.” Draco didn’t look convinced, “Look, I am the leading authority of fucking up your own childhood trying to shoulder too much. By your age I’d already been in the military for two years, if that tells you just how badly I fucked up.” 

“What military lets a twelve year old enlist?” In retrospect, that was a very good point and something Ed should have been asking. 

“I didn’t even ask that question,” Ed admitted, “which proves you’re already smarter than I was.” They paused studying their pale companion closely, “And as for the hat sticking you in Slytherin,” they finally said, “contrary to how it may come off in class, I did actually look into your whole… system, here.” After that first day of flying by the seat of their pants, of course, “I didn’t find ‘evil’ anywhere in the qualifications for your house, kiddo. I saw ‘ambitious’. I saw ‘shrewd’. I saw ‘qualities of leadership’.” 

“So what?” 

“So,” Ed looked back to the water, “my wonderful bastard of a husband probably would have been in Slytherin, had he gone to Hogwarts, of course. So, I’d appreciate you not shit talking the qualities that have been saving my ass since before I knew it needed to be saved.” 

Draco’s lips curled into what could almost be a smile, if it wasn’t so goddamn sardonic, “That’s strange to hear from someone so close to Potter and his friends. They don’t much care for my kind if you haven’t noticed.”

Oh, Ed had noticed. Ed had noticed a lot of shit; they’d noticed how the other houses treated the Green kids; how Blue was passive aggressive, Yellow was wary, and Red was outright hostile. 

They’d even sat the twins down for a long talk about equal opportunity pranking and unfair bias -- as well as how tiring it was to try and prove people wrong when you could just prove them right by doing nothing at all.

“I’m working on it,” they admitted, “but mostly Potter and them, they don’t really mention you at all. Sorry to bruise your ego.”

“After last year, I should be glad it’s only my ego that Granger is bruising,” and holy shit-- Did the kid just? 

Was that a  _ joke _ ?

“I did hear that Hermione decked you, yeah,” Ed let themself grin, “Fuckin’ terrifying, that one.” Draco huffed in agreement, “Everyone needs to get decked every once in a while,” they continued, “my best friend? She hits me with a giant wrench almost every time I see her. She’s also married to my little brother so I see her  _ a lot _ . But sometimes I deserve it. And from what I heard, you really deserved it.”

“I did,” Draco admitted, and now that the gates were open it appeared he couldn’t wrangle them closed again; which honestly, was what Ed was hoping for. Someone had to get the kid talking; “I was. Very out of line. And the worst part was I didn’t  _ mean  _ any of the things I said. I just knew it would hurt.”

“I’ve been there,” Ed sighed, “you’re hurting so you want everyone else to be hurting. So, you go for the low hanging fruit. And you know that you really shouldn’t, like you  _ really _ shouldn’t, it would be crossing a huge line. But before you know it you’ve said it and it’s out there and you can’t make it go away.” Draco nodded, “You know what you can do, though?”

“Hm?”

“You can apologize. And you can do better. You can  _ be  _ better.” Ed paused, “And you can start by dumping those  _ awful  _ kids you hang out with. Why don’t you hang out with, I dunno, Zambini or something. Blaise is a funny motherfucker and actually a decent human. Do you even like those two? Tweedles Dumb and Dumber? What are their names? The ones who sound like STD’s?” 

Draco groaned, “Crabbe and Goyle,” close enough to Crabs and Gonorrhea if you asked Ed, “they’re so stupid it almost physically hurts. But they’re good at taking orders and they’re big enough that no one tries to physically hurt me.” He sighed again, “Usually. Bloody Granger.”

“Again, you had that one coming. You had it coming when you called her a mudblood, too. Be thankful Weasley’s wand was screwed up. I highly doubt puking up slugs is a fun experience.”

“That was two years ago!” Draco’s eyes had gone wide, “How do you  _ know  _ all of this?” 

“I’m literally in the military?” Ed said, “Roy’s best friend is the head of Amestranian intelligence? You think I trust  _ Dumbledore  _ to tell me the truth of what kind of fuckery has gone down here in the last four years?”

“Don’t let Potter hear that you don’t worship the ground the headmaster walks on,” Draco warned, “that never goes well.” 

“I am firmly on team McGonagall. Let the old man retire so a competent adult can take over.” Literally any competent adult. 

That would be the campaign slogan:  _ Any Competent Adult, 1995 _ . 

“You told Granger she could be Minister.” It wasn’t a question. It wasn’t an accusation. It was just a statement. “Did you mean it?”

“I did. It’s what she wants to do and I believe she can do it.”

“Huh.” 

“What do you want to do, Draco?” 

“What?”

Ed turned carefully to face him, studying his shocked expression carefully; no one had ever asked this child what he wanted, that was for goddamn sure, “In the future. After school. What do you want to do?”

“My father--” 

Nope, “I didn’t ask what your father wanted. I asked what you wanted.” 

The silence that stretched was the longest yet -- they’d been out there for a while, already. Breakfast would be ending soon. But neither of them had anywhere to be; not that Ed knew of, anyways. Sure, they had some essays to grade but those could wait. Especially since they could shove half of the stack at Roy with a vague rubric and get everything done double speed. 

“I think… I think I’d like to be a healer.” Draco finally answered, his voice so soft that Ed almost didn’t catch it and had to strain to make out the words when they did.

“That’s a magical doctor, right?” At the boy’s nod, Ed grinned, “That’s awesome, Draco,” a quick ruffle of white blonde hair earned them an indignant yelp, “you’re gonna have to work on your bedside manner.”

“Oh, shove it, Elric,” there was the haughty little shit Ed might have become inexplicably fond of, “If I tell you something… something really bad. Can you do something about it? Without letting anybody know it was me that told you?”

Like pulling a string, Ed’s spine straightened, their shoulders tensing in response to the sudden change in the air, “All sources remain anonymous,” they assured, “what’s going on?”

“My father. I mentioned he had the Dark Mark. That is… he’s a follower of You-Know-Who. I think. I think there’s something coming. Ed. And I don’t know what to do.”

“What do you mean? You think somethings coming? Why?” 

“There was an attack at the Quidditch World Cup, I’m sure you’ve heard.” Ed nodded -- Roy had told them about that before they’d ever left, “I don’t know who was involved in that but. We were there, my family. And I got separated from my father in the chaos. I don’t know where he was. He could have been--” he broke off, his voice catching, “He could have been one of them. He could have been  _ torturing  _ people while my mother and I were hiding and scared.”

“And there are others. Old followers. My father’s been getting letters from them. He never lets my mother or I see them. But there were a  _ lot  _ just before I left for school; after The Cup. All from former Death Eaters. Macnair. Nott. Avery. Crabbe and Goyle. Some I haven’t heard of.” Draco bit down hard on his bottom lip; he looked so goddamn young. Small, and scared, and just  _ human _ . Ed wanted to hug him. 

“I’m worried. I’m worried they could have been fake names. I know he’s been in contact with Fenrir Greyback -- he’s a werewolf who. Who purposely targets the children of people who he wants to get back at. He turned Professor Lupin as a child.”

Ed let out a long, measured breath through their nose, “Okay. Okay. Let’s. Let’s just unpack this, for a moment. First, the cup. When was the last time you saw your father? Was it before everyone started screaming?”

Scrunching up his eyebrows, which were there, okay, Ed was just a petty asshole sometimes, in thought, Draco nodded, “Yeah. He was there with us when it all started.” 

“Okay, that’s good. That means he wasn’t a part of it at the beginning. What about earlier that night? Did he seem… off? Nervous or jittery? Did he go anywhere without you and your mother for any amount of time?”

“He said he had to go talk to… to Mr. Crouch. Before the game started.” He’d started picking at the sides of his fingers, “I thought it was a little odd, since Mr. Crouch was in the box with us during the match. I just figured it was ministry stuff.”

“Did you  _ see  _ him talking to Crouch? Or did he tell you that was what he was doing and then you lost sight of him?”

Draco’s face fell, “The second one. He could have… he might not have talked to Crouch at all, right? He could have been planning the attack without being a part of it.”

Truth, the kid was smart; Ed really didn’t want to worry him even more, but they also couldn’t insult his intelligence by trying to  _ lie _ , “It’s a possibility,” they said slowly, “but we can’t know for sure. After the attack, when did you see him again?”

“He found us. We had run into the woods, away from all of it. Mother wanted me as far away as we could get before she went to go find him; there were spells flying everywhere, things were on fire. People were running and screaming. She had just stopped us and told me to stay put when father showed up.”

At least his mother sounded like a sensible woman; they told him as much, “That was a good call on your mother’s part. Your safety should always come first. She sounds like a good mom.” Draco nodded firmly, his eyes had hardened from liquid mercury to solid steel since he’d gathered the courage to start the conversation, “Now, as for your father,” who sounded like a douche, but Ed wasn’t gonna say that one out loud. Yet. “Where did he say he was?”

“He said he’d been looking for us.”

Blessing their eidetic memory to hell and back, Ed nodded, “Okay, you said your mom had taken you pretty deep into the woods, so that may account for why it took him so long. If he was really looking for you, he may have tried to find you in the chaos before branching off into the forest.”

Draco let out a breath he probably hadn’t even been aware of holding, “Yeah,” he said softly, “you’re right. It could.”

“You don’t sound convinced.” Because sometimes someone had to state the obvious. 

“It’s just. Between that and the letters and. And I don’t think it’s the first time he could have done something. Terrible.”

“What do you mean?”

“You’ve heard about what happened during my second year? With the students getting petrified and the basilisk? That Potter so gallantly slayed, mind you.”

Ed held back a snort; this kid and his obsession with Harry was going to give them a lot of amusement when things weren’t so damn serious, “I did, in fact, hear about the  _ fuck off huge snake  _ that managed to run around unnoticed for like, half a school year, yes.”

“Yeah, hard to miss that headline,” Draco agreed dryly before sobering, “I’ve seen you with her. The Weasley girl.”

“Ginny,” Ed corrected softly, “her name is Ginny. There are fucking seven of those kids, let her have her own identity, please.” The implication was clear -- Draco didn’t want to be  _ just a Malfoy  _ and he should extend the courtesy outward. Plus, it stressed Ginny the fuck out when people looked at her and saw her brothers.

“Sorry,” and wow, was that the first time the kid had ever apologized? Ed should keep a tally, “Ginny. You two seem close.”

“Shared trauma,” Ed shrugged, “I have some experience with fucking up and almost dying at eleven years old. I’ll tell you about it sometime, it’s one hell of a story. Anyway, sometimes she just needs someone to talk to. Or to not talk to. Honestly, I think if you could stop being such an ass for like, eight seconds, you two would like each other.”

“I’ve seen her bat bogey hex, I’m not going to risk it just yet, thank you,” honestly, a wise decision. 

Draco was quiet for another moment, apparently steeling himself for what he was going to tell Ed next, “Remember,” he started, “you didn’t hear this from me. Any of it. About the Cup, about the letters, or about this.” 

“I remember. And I promise, Draco. No one is ever going to know you were involved. I’ll even be an extra huge asshole to you in class this week if it would make you feel better.”

He winced, “Please, don’t. The prefects are already mad about how many points I lose them in Intro To Alchemy.” 

“You can tell them that I overcompensate in the other classes,” Ed offered, “I never thought it was fair that your shit attitude was costing your house so many points, but I couldn’t  _ not  _ take them. So I tend to dole them out a little liberally in my other classes.”

The sound of Draco’s harsh swallow was audible, “You really. You really meant it. When you said you didn’t think we were evil.”

“Everyone has the capacity for good and for evil,” Ed said softly, “Everyone, in their life, is going to do things that  _ are  _ good, things that  _ are  _ bad, and things that are somewhere in between. I’ve done some fucked up things, Draco. Things I will  _ never  _ be able to atone for. No matter how many people I save. Or how many people I don’t.”  _ Nina _ . “Peter Pettigrew was Red, wasn’t he? He turned out to be pretty evil, right?”

“I guess,” Draco shrugged, “I just. It’s surprising. No one ever seems to give a bloody fuck about us. They act like we’re a stain on the school’s reputation. We even live in the dungeons. They shoved us somewhere to forget about us. Where not even the light can see us. We haven’t had anyone to vouch for us in. A long time. Snape tries but--”

“But he’s a greasy jackass,” Ed nodded, “I know. Well, now you fuckers have me. I didn’t grow up with this fucked up system. Personally, I think that trying to seperate anyone based on their personalities at  _ eleven  _ years old is stupid as hell, but whatever.”

Draco’s laugh was weary, but it was a laugh, “Where were you last millennia?” 

“Thankfully, not living in a world without electricity and clean running water.” They paused, “I feel like we got a little sidetracked. You mentioned something about Ginny?”

The mirth dropped from Draco’s face, “I did. You’ve clearly heard the whole thing; about the diary and the chamber.” 

“I have.” They didn’t like where this was going.

“My father and I were in Diagon Ally the same day as the Weasleys,” he said, “my father stopped to talk to their father. I was too busy being nasty to Potter to pay much attention to what was said but I. I think that he was the one to slip the diary into her cauldron. And I’m not the only one, Potter and his friends seem almost certain but I. I think I saw him reach for her out of the corner of my eye. And he seemed. Off. The rest of the day.”

“He was too smug when they announced that they were going to arrest Hagrid. He suggested they have Dumbledor step down. It was like he knew it was going to happen.”

“The only people happy in a tragedy are those who it’s benefiting,” Ed sighed, reaching up to shove their bangs off of their face with an annoyed huff.

Breakfast must have ended; students were trickling out into the late October sunshine. Potter, Weasley, and Granger had invited Ed along to tea at Hagrid’s later in the morning, though they impressed on them the urgency with which they should avoid the rock cakes if they wanted to keep their teeth  _ inside  _ of their head.

They thought, for a moment, about inviting Draco along. But that seemed a little much. Everyone could change, but no one could change that much, that fast. 

However, they were going to let him in on their Call Me Beep Me policy.

“You know,” they said, “the office hours on my door are kind of bullshit. I’m always around if you need to talk. About alchemy, or not. About school or not. Even if you just, I dunno, want to share a cool book you found. There’s a little tapestry next to my door, shove the bottom left corner. There’s a transmutation circle there. Just touch it and I’ll know wherever I am. Kinda like a doorbell. Any time; day or night. I don’t sleep much anyway.”

“Nightmares?” Draco blurted out, expression shifting swiftly into horrified the second it left his mouth.

“Yeah,” Ed answered honestly, “Roy and I both have them so. Someone will always be there if you need us, okay?”

“I don’t think I’d be comfortable talking with the  _ fuhrer _ ,” the kid grumbled, “what do you even  _ say _ ?”

Grin pulling at their lips until they must have looked at least a little manic, Ed replied, “I usually start with ‘Hey, bastard!’ and then go from there depending on the circumstances.” More seriously, “Honestly, he’s a huge nerd don’t let his position scare you. Hawkeye is the one you should be scared of.”

“Was she the one with the gun?”

“Yeah.” Ed sighed dreamily, “I adore that woman. If Roy and I ever decided to have kids I’d make her their godmother in a heartbeat.” Not that they were ever going to decide to have kids. They were both so fucked up, Ed especially, they wouldn’t even know how to start. They’d talked about it but neither of them even knew what a childhood should look like. 

They were more than happy kidnapping Elicia every free weekend they had and taking her on increasingly elaborate (and educational) field trips.

“Do you just have a thing for befriending people who could kill you?”

After thinking for a few long moments Ed pursed their lips at the very uncomfortable conclusion they came to, “I think. I think I may have made most of the friends I have  _ because  _ someone was trying to kill me. In some cases the friends…  _ are  _ the people who tried to kill me.” Siren sprang immediately to mind. Then Greed and Ling. “Extenuating circumstances. Do as I say, not as I do.”

“ _ Professor _ \--”

“Edward!” Roy had found them, crossing the courtyard in long strides, looking unfairly beautiful in the morning light, “There you are. The kids were worried.”

Ed lifted their metal hand in a wave that was more a cheeky wiggle of their fingers than anything else, “Alright, kid. You’re up. Just like I taught you.” They whispered as Roy drew nearer.

“You didn’t teach me anything! That’s your  _ leader _ !” Draco shrieked back under his breath, a deer caught in the headlights.

“I told you just what to say! Come on, moment of truth! I’ll give your house  _ so  _ many points for making my day. Here he comes!” They couldn’t contain their glee. If Draco just did as he was told it was going to be the best moment of Ed’s life.

C’mon, kid, don’t mess this up. 

Draco took a brief moment to swear very creatively in Ed’s general direction before turning fully to face a suddenly  _ very  _ close Roy with a smile that was almost a wince, “Hello, Fuhrer Bastard!”

_ Yes! _

  
  
  
  
  
  



	7. i dont care about your little threats all the kids in your clique are pretend

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> no i will not always update this fast i just popped my knee the fuck out and cant do anything rn except write and watch horror movie 
> 
> yes i know i am having the worst fuckin year i am a w a r e

Beauxabatons arrived first, in a carriage the size of a house carried by at least a dozen enormous horses; Ed distinctly heard a small Yellow student shriek that it was a dragon, and honestly, that would have been so goddamn cool they probably would have forgotten to yell at Dumbledore about  _ the safety and wellbeing of the fucking students, Albus!  _

The size of the carriage made sense when the headmistress turned out to be approximately the size of two and a half Alex Armstrongs stacked on top of each other.  _ Where  _ was Olivier when Ed really needed her?

“Far, far away from me,” Roy hissed under his breath when Ed voiced their question, forever questioning the odd, odd friendship the two had struck up. Then again, it was Ed.

“Shut up, Mustang, you don’t have all the facts.”

“Which are?” Roy’s eyebrow twitched upwards at their spouses’ argument, though his eyes never left the students steadily filing out of the carriage after their leader. 

Poor kids were absolutely not dressed for the weather, clad in powder blue, silk uniforms, and they looked up at the castle like the place could be haunted (which it was, actually, Roy had been horrified to discover) and seventeen seconds away from collapsing in on itself as long as it was a fraction of a degree warmer than the grounds.

“I love her,” Ed replied, grinning cheekily up at their husband.

“Of course you do,” Roy sighed, “she’s beautiful and could kill you. That’s all it takes for you.” 

Whatever snippy thing Ed was undoubtedly going to counter with was cut off by the large woman’s booming voice.

“Dumbly-dorr!” She said, “I hope I find you well.” Ed cringed; oh good, small talk. And from  _ the French  _ nonetheless. Dumbledore said something that Ed couldn’t make out, presumably because he was speaking at his usual volume which could only be described as  _ I want you to have to lean in to hear what I say so I look more important,  _ but whatever he had said made the woman ask, “Has Karkaroff arrived yet?”

“Karkaroff?” Draco Malfoy had appeared on Ed’s other side; Ed very pointedly did not jump at the teenager’s sudden appearance. They did  _ not _ and no one could prove it. 

Roy wasn’t a reliable witness, he was biased.

“That’s what she said,” Roy murmured smoothly, settling one hand on Ed’s waist comfortably and leaning over their shoulder to speak to Draco directly, “do you know them?”

“If it’s who I’m thinking of, yes.” The child looked grim, “Igor Karkaroff. He was one of the people sending my father letters this summer.”

_ Shit.  _

Ed cast a glance around, carefully making sure no one else was tuned into their conversation; they couldn’t cast one of those fancy muffling charms but dammit, they could avoid nosy teenagers the old fashioned way, “Death Eater?” They asked, so, so softly. 

Draco only nodded. 

Ed swore. So that was two Death Eaters, or at the least two people branded with the dark mark, inside of Hogwarts itself (supposedly Snape had defected but Ed was counting him because they had z e r o trust for anyone who could terrorize children so pointlessly; especially a child as sweet as Longbottom), as well as the children of at least half a dozen more. 

The entourage from Beauxbatons retreated into the castle, presumably to warm up, guided by Havoc and Breda, dressed in casual Wizard’s robes to blend in. Their expressions upon laying eyes on the headmistress were  _ something _ , that was for sure.

“How big do you think Durmstrang’s horses will be?” Finnegan asked, leaning backwards to address Harry, Ron, and Hermione, though he physically startled when he realized Ed and Roy were there as well, freezing when his eyes landed on Draco, “Malfoy,” he said coolly.

The other three turned quickly, shoulders tensing defensively at the sight of the Green student. 

Without a second of hesitation, Ed reached up and settled his hand on Draco’s shoulder, squeezing gently for some semblance of comfort, “Good evening, Seamus,” they said, “Harry, Ron, Hermione.”

The chorused ‘hello’s were a little more reserved than usual; all eight eyes staring at Draco liked they’d never seen him before. The child in question seemed to shrink under the scrutiny. Ed squeezed his shoulder again.

“Hello,” he said, swallowing the apparent lump in his throat, “and I don’t think Durmstrang would arrive the same way. That would just be embarrassing.”

Seamus opened his mouth, probably to say something incredibly rude if the antagonistic tendencies of Red and Green’s house relations were to be upkept, but one look at Ed and Roy stopped him in his tracks.

“Err… yeah,” he said, shifting awkwardly and retreating back to his side of Lavender Brown and Paverti Patil. 

“Professor Elric…” Hermione started, speaking slowly like she was picking her words carefully, “Fuhrer Mustang. I…” for the first time in her young life, Hermione Granger seemed lost for words.

“The bloody hell are you doing with Malfoy?” Ron blurted out; and honestly, Ed could respect that about him. He said whatever the fuck he felt needed to be said. It was a good quality; one he had in common with Ed. 

Which is why Ed had no problem doing the exact same thing right back, “We were continuing a conversation,” they said calmly, though the fingers of their metal hand were twitching at their side; this was far, far earlier than they’d ever wanted to try and shove Draco into the deep end of Making Amends, “you may have noticed our dramatic exit from breakfast.”

Ron grunted. Hermione looked curious. And Harry. Harry was just tired.

Ed could see it in his eyes -- he was the kid who defeated Voldemort.  _ Twice _ . As far as anyone was concerned he was the savior of the entire world. And that was all they were ever going to see when they looked at him. And Harry was so, so goddamn tired. Harry just wanted to be himself; he wanted to be normal. He wanted to not feel like he had the weight of the world pressing into his shoulders.

It was the same look that Draco had plastered all over his face when they’d sat by the lake.

Aw, goddammit. 

Looking at Roy helplessly, Ed huffed out a large sigh. 

“Sorry, kid. Looks like we’re going for immersion therapy,” they said to Draco and then before the kid had a chance to make more than a distressed, questioning noise in the back of his throat, Ed cast his attention to the three that Draco liked to refer to as The Golden Trio, “You brats and I need to have a chat. Specifically Potter.”

Like the stag his patronus manifested as, Potter’s eyes went wide, “What did I do?”

“Nothing, nothing.” Ed stepped away, entrusting Draco to Roy with a subtle nod at his husband and an encouraging smile at the teenager, “Just… c’mere, would you? Hermione, make one of those muffling bubbles. This is no one else’s business.”

With the three Red students gathered around them, Ed had never felt more like the leader of the world’s strangest cult.

"Couldn't you do something like that with alchemy?" Ron asked.

And. Huh. Could they? 

The calculations started rolling through Ed's head, their overactive brain even going so far as to add in the scratchy-squeal sound effect of chalk on a board. They would have to compensate for air density, probably. The weather, clearly; they'd have to use lithium in the circle and too much water in the air would be  _ disastrous. _

Still, a tentative array formed and Ed made a small noise of satisfaction. Truth, to think they'd almost given up their alchemy. It sounded almost unthinkable -- but they would have done it. For Al.

They'd give up anything for Al.

"I could, theoretically, Ed admitted, "But I'm not too keen on testing a new array in a throng of children that would be caught in the crossfire if it goes bad. I feel like it would be a black mark on my teaching." They looked at Hermione, "So, if you'd be so kind as to wave your magic stick…"

Hermione sputtered indignantly, " _ Magic stick…!" _

"Bloody hell, 'Mione," Ron sighed as Harry raised his wand and cast the spell, "haven't we talked about your priorities?"

"Magic stick!" She repeated, "Magic is so much more than waving a stick! It's like saying that alchemy is drawing an  _ oval  _ and some squiggly lines!"

"Touche,” Ed conceded, something deep in their soul giving a hard twinge at  _ oval _ , “now, you’re probably wondering why I’ve called you all here today.” The dry looks were absolutely worth it; Ed had always wanted to say that. They almost had the chance when announcing to Winry and Al that they were marrying the bastard, but they’d forgotten to take the ring off beforehand and Pinako never missed a single goddamn thing.

“You may have noticed that I’ve been spending time with a certain blonde haired, Green tied student that you lot don’t like.”

Ron scoffed; “Putting it a little lightly there, mate.”

“He’s  _ vile _ ,” Hermione added.

Harry stayed very quiet.

Interesting.

“Okay,” Ed sighed, “good start. How do I put this? You’re, uh. You’re wrong? I guess.” Three mouths opened in outrage; Ed held up a hand, “Yeah, yeah, I know. But. Have you guys ever actually spoken to him?”

“He’s spoken to us,” Ron said darkly; “we told you about what he called ‘Mione!”

“You did,” Ed nodded, “as well as that time that she almost broke his nose; which,  _ nice _ .” Hermione looked proud despite herself, “But the thing is; he told me about all of those things as well. He knows they were wrong. He knows damn well he deserved that punch. He wants to do better.”

“Four years late on that one,” Ron was not having any of it, “his father nearly killed my  _ sister _ !”

A fair point. 

But, a point Ed had been prepared for. Ugh, maybe all of Roy’s chatter about the importance of a good, solid plan of action had rubbed off on them after all.

Gross.

“He told me about that,” Ed admitted softly, “he says he couldn’t prove it, but the coincidences keep piling up. He told me a lot more about his father. I think--”

“Lucious is abusing him,” Harry interrupted; so, so tired, “I ran into them once, the summer before second year. In Nocturn Ally. There were little things I picked up on; I should have done something, but I was kind of. Hiding in a cupboard at the time.” The regret was tangible; Ed knew the flavor well. Like old blood and  _ what if’ _ s.

“Yeah,” they sighed, reaching up to rake a hand through the end of their ponytail, “yeah, I think his dad is abusing him. I can’t tell you what he told me; I promised him. But I can tell you that I think you should. I don’t know. You don’t have to be his friend. Just stop going out of your way to antagonize him; and Slytherin in general. Maybe get the rest of your house to tone down on the outright hatred. These are kids who were sorted at eleven years old, based on criteria that  _ nowhere  _ listed ‘evil’ in its qualifications.”

“Being ambitious and goal oriented isn’t a bad thing. Just because Voldemort and a good chunk of his followers came from the house doesn’t make all of them evil. There are muggle borns in Slytherin, you know. I highly doubt they’re championing for their own genocide.” Here, they paused, waiting for Harry to look up so they could catch his eye, “And we all know of at least one person from your house who wasn’t all that brave, don’t we?”

Though the sound from the outside world was muffled, like they had been submerged underwater, Lee Jordan’s shrill yell of, “ _ The lake!”  _ was still completely audible.

Harry dropped the charm quickly, turning with the rest of the student body towards the black lake. 

Durmstrang had taken it upon themselves to build a submersible  _ ghost ship _ , from what Ed could tell. The whole thing appeared to almost be glowing; the dark metal a purposeful, rusty copper, accented with smooth, matte black. 

“Well,” Ed drawled as they drew closer to Roy and Draco with the other three children in tow, “that’s subtle.”

“You’re just mad that you didn’t think of it first,” Roy shot back as the Durmstrang students began filing down the gangplank and onto the lawn, “Is everyone in this damn tournament going to be bigger than Alex? Because I don’t think any Hogwarts student would stand a chance.”

Ed’s elbow connected with their husbands ribs.

“Only the headmistress was… large,” Draco said with a surprising amount of tact, “The rest of Beauxbatons were average.” He squinted towards the new arrivals, “I think they’re just wearing a lot of clothing.”

“Is it cold in Bulgaria?” Ed asked, rising up onto the tips of their toes for a better look, using Roy’s arm to keep themself stable, “Yeah, that’s a lot of fur. And the gray blob, that’s gotta be Karkaroff. Unless seventeen year old brats are suddenly going completely white and nobody bothered to let me in on it.” If anyone had had an excuse for premature graying as a teenager it was damn well  _ them _ .

The man that Ed had correctly identified as Igor Karkaroff made a beeline for Dumbledore, exchanging more meaningless pleasantries that Ed couldn’t be bothered to care about. What they  _ did  _ notice, however, was that the man was a weasel; tall and thin, with an ugly goatee that curled at the end. 

“Hey Roy, you remember the assignment you sent me an’ Al on, to that one mining town? Youswell?”

“I… recall, yes,” Roy’s eyebrows knit together. Where were they going with this?”

“I think that gross Lieutenant has a twin brother; look at this guy. Ugh. It’s Yoki 2.0. I would have hated him on sight if I didn’t know about his Bad Decisions Tattoo. I can see the coldness in his eyes from here.”

“Who is he calling over?” Hermione seemed to momentarily forget the previous conversation, coming up beside Draco, closer than Ed had ever seen her get to  _ anyone  _ who wasn’t directly adjacent to Harry or Ron, to get a better look. Her face fell, “Oh  _ no _ .”

“What?” Ed and Roy asked together -- but Ron had already leapt forward to almost climb atop Harry’s back, his voice gone shrill.

“That’s  _ Krum _ ! That’s  _ Viktor Krum _ !” 

Sharing a look with their husband, Ed wiggled their eyebrows. They’d done enough Child Wrangling for the evening; it was his turn. Roy’s lips twitched downwards. It was literally Ed’s  _ job  _ to handle the Wrangling. Ed lifted their chin. If Roy wanted to sleep on the office couch he was more than welcome to make Ed ask the damn question.

Roy huffed out an annoyed breath, defeated at his own game, “I’ll bite,” he said, “who the hell is Viktor Krum?”

Whirling on them, manic, as the Durmstrang students followed by the writhing, converging eldritch monster of excitement the majority of Hogwarts had become filed into the castle, Ron waved his hands through the air, “He’s the greatest Quidditch player in the  _ world _ ! We just saw him at the Cup, didn’t we?” He turned to Harry, his face slowly turning as red as his hair, “He’s  _ amazing _ , I didn’t know he was still in  _ school _ !”

So, Karkaroff’s golden boy had been at the Cup as well? That put him on the list of possible Death Eaters.

“The game was actually very good,” Draco whispered softly so only Ed could hear, “Ireland was up by so many points there was no possible way for Bulgaria to catch them before someone caught the Snitch; so Krum just bloody went for it. It’s rare for the team to catch the snitch and not win, but Krum wasn’t about to let anybody out seek him at the World Cup.”

Ed hummed softly in acknowledgment; they’d never particularly cared about sports, and the addition of broomsticks hadn’t changed their opinion on the matter, but they weren’t about to say that  _ aloud _ ; Quidditch was practically a religion to these kids.

Plus, they knew that Draco was the seeker on the Slytherin team.

“He’s allowed to play on a professional team while still in school?” Ed asked.

“He must have special permission; I know Wood, he was Gryffindor’s captain, had to wait until he graduated.” Draco spoke a little louder, “He’s on the Puddlemore United team, isn’t he?” The question was directed towards Harry, and Ed recognized an olive branch when they saw one.

They just hoped Harry took it.

“Yeah,” he said after a few long moments, “that’s right. Angelina Johnson is almost as bad as he was, though. She’s going to kill us by the end of the year.”

The tentative smile that crossed Draco’s face was possibly the most wonderful thing Ed had seen in a long time, “Flint’s the same way. The fact that they canceled Quidditch for the year doesn’t seem to register.”

“I’m having Wood flashbacks as we speak,” Harry said dryly, dropping his voice and putting on a truly terrible accent, “ _ You can’t cancel Quidditch! _ ”

“Marcus is under the impression it’s all an elaborate joke.”

“He and Angelina must be in cahoots.”

“The scandal.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> do you think harry james 'abused my whole childhood' potter would keep being a dick after having dracos abusive dad pointed out to him
> 
> i mean honestly maybe jk is a fuckin terf i dont trust her
> 
> but do you think m y version would? no no he would not


	8. i know about whispers

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *shrug emoji*

Ludo Bagman (what a fuckin’  _ name _ ) and Bartemius ( _ seriously _ ) Crouch joined the menagerie already seated at the teacher’s table. Ed itched under their skin; they didn’t like the look of Crouch; Karkaroff and Snape were definitely branded with the wizarding equivalent of the oroborus that marked a homunculi; and Bagman was just an  _ idiot _ . 

“Do you think they would notice if I snuck down to eat with the brats?” They whispered, squirming in their seat; there was something in the back of their chest screaming to get out; something angry and feral that could sense danger and wanted  _ out of it _ , “I’ll even go to Yellow so no one says shit.” 

Not that Ed didn’t often eat with the Yellow kids; they split their time fairly equally between the houses, but Beauxbatons had settled at Blue, Green and Red were vying for the attention of Durmstrang. Yellow seemed like nice, neutral territory.

“They’d notice,” Pomona said behind her pumpkin juice, “trust me.”

“Tried it?” Ed asked sympathetically.

“I don’t know how you get away with it, honestly,” she said.

Ed grinned just a bit ferally; their teeth just a little too sharp, their eyes just a little too bright, “I may be a dog, but they’re not the ones holding the leash and they know it.” 

Minerva and Roy heaved similar, exasperated sighs, catching each other’s eye and breaking out into tired smiles.

“You married them,” she pointed out.

“You hired them,” Roy shot back, casually ignoring the fact that he had  _ also _ hired Ed, long, long before they had manifested any sort of self preservation or impulse control. Back when they were a ticking time bomb of coiled, burning emotions and too much raw power for any one person to carry, let alone someone so young.

“I’m  _ right here _ ,” Ed spoke up with a pout, slumping back into their seat and casting suspicious glares at Karkaroff, who was trying very hard to engage Dumbledor in conversation, “and you both know I am a bloody delight anyway, so cut it the hell out.” 

“You’re a bloody  _ something _ ,” muttered Snape from the other end of the table and Ed’s hair stood on end; Roy would swear on his life that even their ponytail tensed. 

There was one, excruciatingly long moment where the world seemed to simply freeze in its tracks. Too scared to carry on. Like the flow of time itself knew what was coming and was trying desperately to delay the inevitable. 

But it was, in fact, inevitable, and Ed’s face reddened, their golden eyes narrowed, and Roy heaved a deep sigh and resigned himself to the mountain of paperwork he was going to have to fill out when Ed ripped this man’s head off and shoved it up his own ass.

“You have something to say,  _ Jack-A-Snape _ ?” They snarled, slowly turning to face the potions master, a snake about to strike, “Because I think I’ve made it clear enough that if you  _ do  _ you should maybe say it to my  _ face  _ like an adult, instead of mumbling it under your breath like a particularly greasy preschooler.” 

“Professor!” Bagman gasped, a hand reaching up to cover the shocked gape of his mouth; Ed thought he looked a lot like one of those giant mawed fish they'd pulled out of the river behind Winry’s house as kids.

“He started it,” Ed hissed, “he always fuckin’ starts it, don’t you Severus? Nothin’ but a big bully. But it’s okay, I prefer it when he picks fights with me. Keeps him from taking it out on the kids.” 

Snape sneered.

Dumbledore stood; a hush fell over students and faculty alike. Ed would possibly admit under pain of, they didn’t know, thumb screws or some shit, that it was a little impressive.

“The Triwizard Tournament is about to begin, but I would like to say a few words before we bring in the casket--”

“The  _ what _ ?” Ed hissed, “We better be putting his ass in it, I swear to fuck, Roy, what is this--”

“ _ Shhh _ ,” Roy clapped a hand over Ed’s mouth, “rant later.”

The ‘few words’ turned out to be a rather long introduction of Crouch and Bagman that Ed mostly tuned out until he beckoned the arguably evil caretaker in with an enormous wooden box encrusted with jewels; hell, Ed could see why Dumbledore had called it a casket -- it was big enough for someone of their completely normal, average size to be buried in.

The students were delighted, not that Ed could really blame them. Big, shiny, box that held nothing but mysteries. It was basically catnip for children. Itty Bitty Creevey even stood on his seat, bless his tiny heart, craning his neck to try and see it until one of the twins took pity on him and hoisted him up onto their shoulders. 

“Ten points to Red,” Ed mumbled into Roy’s glove --because the bastard had kept his hand there through the whole goddamn speech-- they couldn’t tell which of the twins it was but they were both getting extra credit on their next essay. Decent Human Being points.

They were going to Pavlov these children into Real People if it killed them.

As Filch settled the box in front of the headmaster, he launched into a quick overview of the tournament at hand. It was about time he said something worth listening to.

Apparently only Bagman and Crouch knew what the tasks were going to be ahead of time; that was less than comforting. The fate of one of Ed’s kids (and two others) was going to be put in the hands of two chucklefucks Ed didn’t even  _ know _ ? 

Ed didn’t even bother to scold themself for considering their students as their kids -- they did a metric fuck-ton more parenting than half of these kids’ biological fucks. They’d like to see half of them deal with the adolescent hormones and heartbreak Ed was exposed to daily. 

They thought dealing with  _ their  _ teenage years was a pain. At least they were too distracted trying not to die for most of it to really  _ feel  _ the effects, aside from that really terrible, inconvenient, ill-advised crush on their C.O. 

“As you know one student from each school will be chosen to participate; three in total. Many of you have asked me how the students would be chosen, a question which I have cleverly deflected,” the old fucker sounded so pleased with himself; Ed scowled, soft skin shifting against rough ignition cloth, “The answer lies inside of this box.”

Dumbledore tapped said box three times with the tip of his wand, (Ed noted, not for the first time, its resemblance to anal beads and had to choke back completely inappropriate snickers). The lid creaked open, and while Ed had been expecting fog or smoke or  _ anything  _ cool, the box did nothing more than groan in annoyance as the headmaster opened the lid fully and reached inside.

What he withdrew was a cup. A big, wooden cup that just so happened to be spewing blue flames from its mouth.

“That cup is coming for your job,” Ed mumbled, but muffled as they were by Roy’s  _ insistent  _ goddamn hand (and it was not the first time the bastard had spent an entire meeting with his palm covering Ed’s mouth to keep them from ripping someone several pot-hole sized new assholes) it came out sounding more like a request for a kebab.

Which Ed wouldn’t have turned down, actually. There was this one fantastic Kebab place between headquarters and their house that they had been missing like a limb (ha) since they’d left Amestris.

“The Goblet Of Fire,” Dumbledore announced with much gusto, settling the cup on the box’s now closed lid, “If you wish to enter the tournament all you must do is write your name and school clearly on a slip of parchment and drop it into the goblet--”

“And be at least seventeen!” Ed shouted, finally shoving Roy’s hand away from their mouth because this was  _ important _ , “I swear, if any of you little brats even try it--” The return of Roy’s hand announced itself with a resounding  _ slap _ that would have rattled the brains of any lesser human.

“Sorry about that, folks,” Roy smiled charmingly before turning back to Dumbledore, “They’re very protective of their students. Continue.”

Sniffing delicately and trying to act unbothered -- an act which Ed saw directly through--, Dumbledore carried on, “As I was saying. You have twenty four hours to enter the tournament. Tomorrow evening the Goblet will return the names of the students it deems most worthy.”

_ Deems Most Worthy _ ? Ed scrunched up their nose. It was a cup. Fancy fire cups were still cups.

“The Goblet will remain in the entrance hall until then, giving everyone a fair opportunity to enter. Now, pay attention this is very important, the entrance of your name is a binding magical contract. If you are chosen by the goblet you are obligated to participate in the tournament -- do not take this lightly. And while Professor Elric beat me to the punch,” golden eyes rolled, “I am going to repeat that no one under the age of seventeen will be allowed to enter their name. To ensure this, I will be drawing an Age Line around the goblet once it is settled in the hall.”

Against their better judgment, a small, miniscule part of Ed relaxed. Precautions weren’t exactly Dumbledore’s thing; it was probably Bagman or Crouch who insisted on the line, but either way Ed was grateful. 

It would hopefully keep some of the younger brats from trying their luck. 

Vivid red hair came immediately to mind -- the twins were definitely going to pull  _ some  _ kind of stunt. The shitheads.

Ed pushed up from the table before Dumbledore had even finished his closing statement, stretching their arms above their head and arching their back to crack it. Truth, that man could talk for an eon and barely say a damn thing. 

The students were in a near frenzy; a quick glance towards the Red table showed sour faced Weasley twins huddled close together muttering darkly; totally going to pull something. 

Ed hoped it turned their skin purple. It would clash with the hair and serve them right. 

Potter was nowhere to be found, however, and Ed wanted a quick moment to talk to the kid before everyone headed to their commonrooms for the night. 

“I’m gonna find Harry,” Ed said, leaning down to press a quick kiss to a still seated Roy’s cheek, “I’ll meet you in my office in ten, yeah?”

Roy nodded with a serene smile, turning back to his conversation with Professor Flitwick -- Roy had a weird hard on for Charms that Ed decided they just weren’t going to question. 

Weaving through excited students clamoring to greet the new students Ed managed to catch sight of unruly dark hair near the door. Hogwarts’ students already knew well enough to get out of Ed’s way when they were trying to get somewhere and a group of Beauxbatons’ kids quickly learned the same; a crowd of Durmstrang students huddled around the exit, however, didn’t take the hint. 

“Move it,” they grunted, shoving their way through, more than used to having to navigate walls of pure muscle, “what the hell is the hold up?”

The hold up, it turned out, was Igor Karkaroff blatantly staring at Harry’s forehead, pale as a ghost.

The nerve of this guy, honestly. 

“Hey Karkaroff,” Ed sidled up next to Harry with their face carefully neutral, “I’ve never had to say this before, but the kids eyes are  _ down  _ a little bit.” They were trying  _ not  _ to be overtly hostile, they really were, but they could tell it was all going to unravel very quickly.

“And who, pray-tell, are you?” Karkaroff asked, eyeing Ed like they were gum stuck to the bottom of his expensive shoe; stopping at their skirt and jolting back up to their face, lips curling into a sneer.

The  _ audacity  _ of this  _ bitch _ .

“Edward Elric,” they said, extending their hand -- their  _ right _ hand-- and smiling genially until the man took it, “Professor of Alchemy, on loan from the Amestrian Military,” they  _ squeezed _ Karkaroff’s fingers until his eyes bugged out of his head and his face reddened in an attempt to act unaffected by the pressure, “You have heard of me -- I usually go by Fullmetal.”

And oh, Karkaroff had definitely heard of Ed; good.

“I heard you died,” he ground out.

“Didn’t stick,” Ed replied, flexing their fingers one last time before releasing, “and unless you actually have something to  _ say  _ to Harry, I suggest you move your ass because it’s blocking the door.”

They made sure to keep eyes on Karkaroff until he, along with the majority of the Durmstrang students, strode right out the front door, presumably heading towards their ship to turn in for the night.

“What was all that about?” Harry asked softly, peering up at Ed with wide green eyes; the professor sighed and motioned the kid out of the entryway, back towards their classroom. 

“Karkaroff is a death eater,” Ed said bluntly once the door shut behind them, “or at least he was. Draco says he has the dark mark and was corresponding with his father all summer.”

“I knew that,” those green eyes rolled as the child huffed, “I  _ meant  _ what did you do to his hand? Who is Fullmetal? Why is he  _ afraid  _ of you?’

Ed blinked in surprise, sinking against the edge of their desk. “Oh.” 

The room looked different at night; they normally packed up all of their grading and brought it into their office as soon as the last class of the day ended and thus had never seen it cast in shadow and moonlight. It was serene and a little creepy. They liked it immensely. 

“Those are three questions that all have the same answer, actually,” Ed sighed, scratching at the back of their head, wincing when they hit the tender spot that having their hair tightly pulled back all day had caused, “I am Fullmetal, for one. When you become a State Alchemist in Amestris they give you a fancy title. I’m The Fullmetal Alchemist -- Roy is The Flame Alchemist. The titles usually go along with whatever your proficiency is.”

“So you’re proficient with metal?” Harry asked, perching on the top of one of the student tables, legs swinging just barely above the floor; the kid was one good growth spurt away from being as tall as Ed, “I’ve only ever seen you work with stone.”

Wincing for an entirely different reason, Ed looked out towards the window; they could see the eerie glow of the Durmstrang ship on the lake through the glass, “I can work with just about anything,” they admitted, “but that’s not the norm. Most alchemists specialize. Like Roy and his fire.”

Harry nodded, “Okay. So you’re like a Jack of All Trades? Or I mean, I did hear Ro-- the fuhrer,” his cheeks heated at the slip and Ed definitely filed that away for later; Harry Potter had a little crush on Roy. Fuckin’  _ adorable.  _ Ed loved these kids, “he called you a genius. Is that what he meant?”

How the hell was Ed supposed to get into the subject of Truth and The Gate without dropping buzz words like Human Transmutation and  _ I should have been arrested at ten years old but I joined the military instead _ ? 

Then again; this was the child who had saved the world three times before he’d even hit puberty. 

“My mom died, when I was a kid,” Ed started, “and my dad had fucked off even before that. So, with her gone my little brother and I, we were all alone. Our dad was some big shot alchemist so we thought, hey, let's follow in his footsteps and try to find him and maybe he’ll be proud of us and come back,” Ed laughed dryly at themself, “we were stupid.”

Harry nodded, face pinched. He clearly didn’t see what the backstory had to do with anything, but he figured he’d just go with it and see what happened. 

“While we were training with Izumi, the teacher I told you all about? Yeah, her. We discovered something that. That we really shouldn’t have. There are certain laws regarding alchemy -- I’ve taught you a lot about equivalent exchange. To obtain anything--”

“Something of equal value must be lost,” Harry finished, “it’s the first law of alchemy.”

Ed nodded, “Good.” They took a deep breath; they still knew the list by heart, they recited it every night before they could sleep instead of counting sheep, “Water, carbon, ammonia, lime,” Ed had to pause, had to take a deep breath, had to count to ten and ground themself, had to grip the lip of the desk just to keep themself upright, “phosphorous, salt, saltpeter, sulfur, fluorine, iron, silicon... and traces of fifteen other random elements. Do you know what that makes, Harry?”

Mutely, Harry shook his head; messy dark hair falling into his eyes. He didn’t bother to push it back.

“You,” Ed said, “Me. The human body, when broken down, is just a bunch of elements smashed together in the correct proportions. Well, most of it. .111958% can’t be accounted for.”

“What do you mean?” asked Harry, “The list is incomplete?”

“Not quite;” Ed keeps their eyes locked on the ceiling, “What do you think we could give up that could be equivalent to the human soul?” A sharp inhale of breath was Ed’s only answer, “Yeah. Al and I didn’t know either. We thought that if we… if we gave a little blood, it would be enough. Because she was our mom, we were made from her, that it would be enough. That we could bring her back.” 

Tears pricked at Ed’s eyes and they knew they had to look back at Harry; when they did they wished they hadn’t. They could see it on his face -- the horrified understanding that said he knew exactly where Ed’s tale was headed, “It wasn’t enough,” they managed to force out. 

“What happened?”

“We tried to play God,” Ed answered, “God didn’t like it. There’s a… a place. Somewhere between here and wherever we go after. A Gate guarded by Truth. When human transmutation is attempted, whoever was dumb enough to try it, they end up there and they have to face Truth. I saw  _ everything _ ,” they let out a shaky breath, “it’s why my alchemy is so strong, why I can transmute without a circle or an array. Why I’m considered a ‘genius’. I saw Truth and Truth saw me.”

Even as their automail ports ached at the movement, the phantom pain from the memory of their first trip to the Gate sharp and real, Ed lifted their right hand and slowly removed their glove, “All of that knowledge doesn’t come for free,” they said softly, flexing their fingers, moonlight playing on the metal, “if you play God you pay the toll. The first time, I lost my arm and my leg and it… it took Al’s whole body. I had to bind his soul to a suit of armor. The second time, I almost lost my ability to do alchemy. When Roy was forced to perform Human Alchemy on the Promised Day, Truth took his eyes.”

Harry’s eyes were locked on the automail hand and Ed held it out, “You can touch it.”

Not wasting time, Harry’s tiny fingers ghosted gently over Ed’s shiny palm, “Does it hurt?”

“Sometimes.”

“Can you feel things with it?” 

Wiggling the fingers, Ed took a deep breath and forced their shoulders to relax, “Certain things. There are pressure censors and the whole thing is wired directly into my nervous system. My best friend is a biomechanical genius, all on her own merit too, she didn’t cheat the system with the Gate, she’s just that amazing. She’s made me… every automail limb I’ve ever worn.” 

“Your leg?” 

“Left,” Ed nodded, “Right arm, left leg. That’s why they call me Fullmetal,” their laugh held no humor, “The old fuhrer thought he was so funny,” casually leaving out the part about Bradley being a homunculus seemed like the right choice, “and as for why Karkaroff is afraid of me… I have a reputation.”

“A reputation,” Harry repeated dryly, “like the reputation you have around here?”

“Al and I traveled around, after I passed the state exam and joined the military. Roy knew the whole story and agreed to help us try to find a way to get Al’s body back. According to everything we could find our best bet was something you’re intimately familiar with: The Philosophers Stone.”

Harry’s spine stiffened, “Voldemort wanted to--”

“Use it to get his body back,” Ed nodded, “I heard. The good news is that even if he’d gotten his hands on it, it wouldn’t have worked. The stone was a fake.” 

“What?”

“Flamel is a hack,” Ed said, and really they should just get the phrase tattooed on their forehead with how often they said it, “and The Philosopher's Stone is a myth. An expensive illusion. It can amplify the power of whoever wields it, sure, but its powers aren’t infinite. And the cost to make it? It’s people. Souls. Hundreds of thousands of innocent people have to die for a red stone with any amount of power to exist.”

Harry had gone pale, “It...there were  _ souls  _ in the stone?”

“I don’t know how Flamel made his version,” Ed admitted, “but I’ve only seen one working stone. And it was destroyed, after the Promised Day. The man who created it used it to heal Havoc’s spine and to save Roy’s sight and then disposed of it. And everything I’ve ever learned, from Truth and by sticking my nose in places it didn’t belong, all points in the same direction. Human Alchemy is forbidden for a  _ reason _ , Harry.”

“I understand,” he nodded.

“Do you?” Ed asked, gaze hardening into steel, “Do you understand?” The implications went unsaid but were clear nonetheless; Harry was a powerful young wizard who had lost so, so much already in his life. 

It would be so easy for him to repeat Ed’s mistakes.

“Yes,” Harry’s voice didn’t waver and Ed nodded, appeased.

“Good. Now, while we were tromping all over to hell and back, we tended to find trouble just everywhere we went. People being abused by the system, by the government, by lying false prophets. And, well, we couldn’t just let that go unanswered for,” Ed grinned their feral little grin again, “I suspect that would make someone who pledged allegiance to a genocidal maniac a little nervous, don’t you?”

“He’s worried you’re going to shove your metal foot right up his--”

“Exactly,” Ed nodded, “I’m going to be keeping a very close eye on him. If he wanted to try anything, I just made his job a lot harder.”

Grinning cheekily, Harry tilted his head, “You mean Miss. Hawkeye is going to make his job a lot harder.”

Ed’s hand flew to their chest, clutching their nonexistent pearls, “I share my tragic backstory with you and you sass me,” they pitched their voice an octave higher in false outrage, “how could you, Harry.”

“Roy’s right,” Harry drawled, forgetting the title for the second time, “you are dramatic.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> jack a snape is a play on one of those good ol Shakespearean insults


	9. its an old scar trying to bleach it out

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> uhhhh yeah sorry about the two month wait for this 
> 
> its just *john mulaney voice* life

_ Harry Goddamn Motherfucking Potter. _

Technically, Ed was not supposed to follow Dumbledore and the other judges into the little room beyond the Great Hall.

Technically, Ed didn’t give a single solitary shit.

_ Technically,  _ Ed pushed past the headmaster and was the first one physically in the room.

A Fourth Champion -- fucking bullshit. It was the  _ Tri _ wizard Tournament. Tri -- Three. Wizard -- ...wizard. Three Wizards!

“Harry James Potter,” Ed was already calling before the other three champions (Cedric Diggory: a sweet, blonde Yellow student that Ed was rather fond of; Fleur Delecour: a beautiful French girl with hair so light it was almost silver; and Viktor Krum: the Bulgarian Seeker that Ed suspected was low-key shoving Ron Weasley right on his way to a sexuality crisis that  _ Ed was undoubtedly going to have to deal with, thanks Vik)  _ had a chance to lob the volly of questions they clearly had in their direction, “what, and I cannot stress this enough,  _ the fuck _ ?”

“Is there really a need for that kind of language, Professor?” Maxime asked, affronted.

“Yes,” Ed said back automatically, keeping their eyes locked on Harry’s, “Jeez, kid, when did you even have time to put your name into the damn thing?”

“I  _ didn’t _ ,” Harry answered; and honestly, the kid looked like he was one dry turkey sandwich away from a complete mental breakdown, “I didn’t put my name in, I  _ swear _ . I don’t need the money, I have more ‘fame and glory’ than anyone could  _ ever  _ want…” he huffed and looked away, staring into the fire with his lips pressed into a stern line, “I just wanted a quiet year at Hogwarts watching  _ other  _ people almost get murdered for a change.”

“Oh, please,” Snape scoffed (and  _ pardon _ , whom the fuck invited him), “Potter has broken every school rule he can get his grubby little hands on since he arrived here his first year -- this is no different. Albus has enabled him at every turn and he-”

“Don’t you have any other villagers to terrorize, Severus?” Ed asked, moving to settle next to Harry on the soft, velvet sofa the teenager had dropped onto, “Harry didn’t do it.”

Beside them, just the tiniest fraction of the tension left Harry’s shoulders.

“You’re sure, Ed?” Roy spoke up; he’d hung back, pressing his back against the far wall. Predictable bastard. Always the vantage point with that one-- he could see everyone as well at the door and was close enough to everything to to act if necessary.

“As sure as I’ve ever been,” Ed answered, a little too earnestly for their own liking but damn, it was Roy, they got a pass, “Harry Potter did not put his name into the magic cup.” 

“Did you get another student to enter your name for you?” Dumbledore asked calmly, always so fucking calmly. 

“No,” Harry answered firmly, slightly calmer since he knew two people in the room already believed him.

“He’s lying!” Maxime cried.

“He couldn’t have crossed the ageline,” snapped Minerva --thank fuck, a competant adult-- “you’ve seen what happened to the students who tried. I don’t think Potter is hiding a beard under his robes, do you?”

Karkaroff hummed, “Albus could have made a mistake with the spell.”

“That only allowed one child to pass?” Ed asked, eyebrows rising, “Both Weasley twins, another handful of Red students, three Green, and two Blue. _ All  _ of them got rebuffed but Potter was allowed to sneak his name in?”

Minerva looked venomously at Snape, daring him to say anything else against Harry, “Exactly. Thank you, Professor Elric.” 

Ed nodded, metal hand sliding across the sofa to grip loosely onto Harry’s wrist -- something to physically ground him and remind him that Ed was there.

“This is still… very irregular,” Karkaroff insisted, turning towards Bagman and Crouch imploringly, “surely something must be done! He is just a  _ child _ !”

“They’re all children,” Ed muttered darkly; they were ignored.

Maxime and Karkaroff seemed to think that the whole thing was a plot on Hogwarts’ behalf and wanted to resubmit all of their students' names until each school had two champions. No matter how many times they were told that it didn’t  _ work  _ like that.

Christ, Ed was so tired. They’d sat through policy meetings that were less ridiculous; they were getting absolutely nowhere and goddammit, they had a class at eight AM. Harry was strung tight as a bow next to them, looking as tired as Ed felt.

_ I just wanted a quiet year… _

Between the genocidal manic, the giant snake, and the dementors fucking Truth themself couldn’t tell how the kid had managed to learn anything at all his first three years of school and now this nonsense.

Goddammit, Ed had  _ told  _ Dumbledore it was a stupid ass idea. 

“You sure are a trouble magnet, aren’t you kid?” Ed whispered, too low for the arguing parties to hear, lightly brushing their shoulder against Harry’s, “Can’t take you fuckin’ anywhere. It’s like Al and cats.”

The smallest, fragilest of smiles graced the teenager’s face in response, “I’d prefer the cats,” he whispered back.

Ed bit back a snicker and peered up and across the room, meeting Roy’s eye and jerking their head --  _ enough is e-fucking-nough _ . Time to order some bitches around.

“Excuse me,” Roy took the hint, because he was absolutely a bastard but sometimes he was a bastard to Ed’s benefit, “has anyone considered the implications? Because from where I’m standing, someone cast a very powerful charm on the Goblet of Fire to make sure  _ Harry Potter _ ended up in this competition. A very dangerous, possibly fatal competition that is considered a  _ binding magical contract _ that he cannot get out of.” 

Silence.

“Someone in this castle has deliberately put this boy’s life in danger,” Roy continued, his arms behind his back in a casual parade rest -- the stance he used when he wanted to be intimidating as fuck but didn’t want anyone else to notice he was doing it on purpose, “Harry has no dearth of enemies, but that is hardly new territory for my team and I,” here he shot a pointed look at Ed, “teenagers with a knack for moral peril is our specialty.”

“What are you saying?” Crouch asked, eyes narrowed -- in the firelight he looked sallow and sick. Too pale. Too thin. The lines around his mouth and the bags under his eyes stood out starkly. 

He looked  _ worried _ .

Which, yeah, sure, this tournament was under his jurisdiction and his ass was probably on the line, but Ed still filed that away as something to pay close, close attention to.

Because they hadn’t considered Roy’s point. That it hadn’t been a mean prank by some older kids to try and embarrass Harry or get him in trouble. That it had been something  _ darker _ , that someone wanted to hurt him.

And now it was all they could think about.

They were considering everyone in the room -- everyone in the castle. Anyone who could have a motive to want to hurt Harry.

Minerva? Hard no. Not even worth considering -- in fact, Ed was going to drag her into the investigation with them. She was now officially an honorary member of Team Mustang.

Snape? Definite possibility.

Karkaroff? Same. 

They both had the dark mark, meaning they both pledged allegiance to Voldemort, and Snape in particular had an intense dislike of Harry.

Though, to be fair, Snape had an intense dislike of everybody.

Dumbledore? A crafty motherfucker and far, far too calm about the whole thing.

Ed was moving him to the top of the list.

“Harry will compete,” Roy said and Harry jerked his head up, his mouth falling open (Ed reached over and shut it with two fingers), “but there will be extra conditions that will be allotted to him,  _ do not argue _ ,” he snapped when Maxime, Karkaroff, and oddly enough Bagman opened their mouths to object, “he is a fourteen year old child thrust into this against his will. Your students have three extra years of education and experience and have trained specifically for this. They entered the competition of their own free will knowing what it would entail. Harry  _ will  _ be getting extra help from my team, Professor Elric, and I.”

Sensing the room about to erupt again, Ed decided to speak up, “I’d be happy to extend an invitation for Fleur and Viktor to attend any of my alchemy lessons they’d like. Cedric, you know you’re always welcome in my classroom and outside of it.”

Cedric, who had been sitting silently the entire time, watching the proceedings, finally quirked a small smile, “Does this mean you’re gonna teach us more than just how to make a clay gargoyle?”

Ed grinned unabashedly back, “I promised Mr. President over there that I’d only teach you lot the basics but I think this counts as an extenuating circumstance,” they turned to the other two champions, “you might want to say goodbye to your eyebrows, though.” They said, “Or find a good fire proofing spell.” Someone always tried to balance mercury with aluminum.

“I fail to see how alchemy will help us in the tournament,” Fleur argued, her perfect nose wrinkling in distaste. “I do not need to make gold.”

“What is it with wizards and gold?” Ed asked the void, looking at the ceiling like the support beams could give them an answer, “I’m not gonna teach you how to turn lead to gold or how to live forever, those are both highly illegal in Amestris.”

“Ed’s a genius,” Harry said bluntly; he’d apparently gone numb to the rest of it and chosen to focus all of his energy on defending Ed’s alchemy. Sweetie pie. “They can craft complicated arrays in their head and perform alchemy without a transmutation circle. They’re the most accomplished alchemist in their country  _ including  _ the president, who, by the way, is standing right behind you in case you didn’t recognize him. Or, perhaps you did and just wanted to shit talk him and his spouse to his face and cause a  _ multinational incident _ .”

“I’m adopting you,” Ed declared as both the representatives of Beauxbatons and Durmstrang whirled around to face Roy in barely restrained horror, “I am filing the papers as soon as I can. You’re my child now. Harry James Elric. Nice ring.”

Roy, for his part, just smiled serenely, “What was it you were saying about my plan?” He asked innocent as can be.

The bastard.

Ed loved him so goddamn  _ much _ that sometimes they wondered how they had survived all of that time in the Other Place. Sure, the second time around they’d had Al, at least. They didn’t have to spend all of the time drunk, and alone, and miserable. 

But christ, how did they manage to get up in the morning without Roy’s dumb fingers ghosting over their ribs -- almost a tease, definitely a tickle, absolutely a dick move, asshat-- and settling at the edge of their jaw so he could tilt their head up and press a kiss to the center of their forehead?

No one had anything else to say about Roy’s plan. Weird how that worked.

“I think it’s a great idea,” chimed in Moody, making Ed jump approximately seventeen feet in the air.

“ _ When the fuck did you get here?” _ They screeched, pulling Harry closer to their chest with a hand clamped over his ear, leaving him flailing against the sudden shift.

“Calm yer arse, Elric, I’ve been here the whole time,” said Moody, his figure illuminated by a single bolt of lightning that flashed over the forbidden forest and set his already… unique… features into something creepy beyond all reason.

“Professor Moody,” Dumbledore greeted calmly, inclining his head just enough to let the light glint off of his half moon spectacles, “am I to understand that you are endorsing President Mustang’s plan?”

Moody pursed his lips, his magical eye zigging and zagging and freaking Ed the fuck  _ out _ , “I think there are dark forces at work here and our main focus should be to protect Potter,” several mouths opened and Moody waved them off with a wiggle of his fingers, “and the other champions from harm. By any means necessary.”

It was the first time, in Ed’s not so illustrious teaching career, that they had to say they agreed with the lunatic.

* * *

  
  


Ed’s newfound agreement with Moody didn’t even make it to lunch the next day. When he turned Draco Malfoy into a ferret.

Sure, the blonde had been poking fun Harry for the whole  _ fourth champion  _ thing, but to be  _ fair _ , he hadn’t known about the fight that Harry and Ron were smack dab in the middle of. And the jokes were all in good fun; at least to Roy’s ear. 

It sounded no more malicious than when he got Ed and Havoc within five feet of each other for any extended length of time.

And it was an excellent tactical move on the boys’ part as well -- Lucius Malfoy, from what Roy had been able discern so far, had people reporting to him from every which way. For his son to suddenly be  _ friendly  _ with Harry Potter would draw unwanted attention, diminish the amount of information that Draco could get back to them, and thoroughly crush the element of surprise, which they were currently banking on.

Hell, when this was all over  _ Roy  _ might hire him.

Moody, however, took offense and decided to teach Draco a lesson in human transfiguration.

Ed.

Ed didn’t take it well.

“That is  _ fucking illegal _ !” They screeched as Minerva asked, “ _ Is that a student?”  _ in a tone that was very close in octave to the pitch Ed had just hit.

“Technically, it’s a ferret,” Moody answered, unconcerned, waving his wand this way and that, weaving Draco through the air as he squeaked and squirmed.

Roy Mustang, President of Amestris, husband of The Fullmetal Alchemist (which was more impressive than actually stating his own title at this point), was not a stupid man. He wasn’t. 

Ed had once joked that his three main kinks were, in order of importance: intellectual coups, democracy, and Ed’s hair.

(Then, they’d gleefully sung that  _ one of those things is not like the other _ , shook their hair out of the ponytail it had been pulled into all day, and did unspeakable things to the leader of their nation on their kitchen table.)

He’d survived Ishval, The Homunculi, Ed’s Adolescence,  _ Wedding Planning _ , and he’d done so because he had a very good sense of when the fecal matter was about to hit the rotating blades. 

That being said, he lurched forward and grabbed onto Draco, securing the snowy mustelid to his chest about… three quarters of a second before the familiar crackle of alchemy heralded Ed’s involvement in the situation. 

Harry, who had been yelling throughout the whole process seemed to choke on his tongue.

Within moments, the professor was wrapped up tightly in transmuted tree trunk, his arms pinned to his sides and his legs clamped together.

For a man who was very into  _ constant vigilance,  _ he sure didn’t see that one coming.

“Human transmutation is illegal!” Ed hissed, snatching Moody’s wand from his hand and visibly considering breaking it over their metal knee before deciding against it after a glance at Minerva, who didn’t even seem to have it in her to chide Ed for, maybe, possibly, going slightly overboard. 

Then again, there were few people in any world who had as much reason for maybe, possibly, going slightly overboard than Edward  ~~ Mustang  ~~ Elric.

In fact, rather than the adorable redness that usually flushed Ed’s face when they were well and truly seething mad, their cheeks had gone bone pale and the flesh fingers wrapped around Moody’s wand were trembling ever so slightly. 

They’d drawn quite a crowd, by then. There had already been some students watching in abject horror before Ed’s involvement and it seemed like the whole situation had become a car crash with a magnetic pull.

“Ed?” Roy took one tentative step forward, still cradling the shaking teenage ferret to his chest. Ed didn’t acknowledge him, simply kept glaring Moody down with single minded, hair raising murder in their already striking eyes, “Lieutenant Colonel?” he tried again, seeping just enough authority into his voice to get their attention.

That, at least, garnered some reaction; Ed’s chin jerked in Roy’s direction, the universal, Pissed Off Elric sign for, “ _ The fuck you want, Bastard _ ?” Roy would take it.

“Elric, at ease.” He waited for a minute for the tiniest amount of the tightness to leave Ed’s shoulders, though they still didn’t bother to look away or give any verbal acknowledgement, “This was not transmutation. It was transfiguration. There are different rules.”

Still, no response. 

Roy looked to Minerva pleadingly and held out Draco with both hands, careful to keep him supported and safe, “Professor?”

“Absolutely,” Minerva responded, and then Roy was suddenly holding a ruffled, vaguely traumatized teenager beneath his armpits. 

The abrupt change in weight almost sent both of them careening to the ground, but he had enough practice holding Ed’s dead weight to right himself before any damage was done.

Any physical damage, anyways.

Christ, did wizards have therapy? Because Draco absolutely needed therapy.

Ed’s attention snapped to the pair of them, their grip relaxing on the wand until it clattered to the stone pathway beneath them. Roy saw them clench their teeth and take several deep breaths through their nose; could practically hear their frantic pulse struggling to calm. 

“I thought--” They broke off, swallowed harshly; Roy wanted nothing else in the entire cosmos than to wrap them up in his arms and hold them until they forgot every gruesome, terrible thing that was currently fighting to the forefront of their mind, “ _ Nina _ \--”

Nina Tucker was the one atrocity, one catastrophic failure that was never going to dissipate for either of them. 

“He’s fine, Ed,” Roy said, “Look, he’s alright. It wasn’t transmutation. Moody changed his shape, not his structure. He’s still here.”

“Who is Nina?” Draco whispered, but Roy hushed him with a warning grunt --  _ not now _ .

Nodding jerkily, Ed turned back to Moody, who was hissing swears and threats under his breath, still trapped tightly in tree bark. 

“You think magic can break all of the rules?” They asked, their expression dark and creased with old grief rubbed raw again, “Break out of this.”   
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> originally i switched to roys pov bc i wanted him to be sappy and married  
> that did not happen  
> oops


	10. these grown up children we became

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> me: doesnt update for like two months
> 
> also me: two chapters in like a week
> 
> *shrug emoji*

Roy Mustang was teaching rudimentary alchemy to a bunch of teenagers who were  _ far  _ more interested in his intrepid rise to the top of Amestris’ political ladder and his relationship with Ed than the chemical composition of the copper cubes on their desks.

The rumor mill at Hogwarts operated at precisely the same speed as the one in Central -- which is to say that not even three full minutes after Ed delivered their appropriately dramatic last word to a bound Alastor Moody and stomped across the grounds to go harass the giant squid that resided beneath the dark waters of the Black Lake, the  _ entire  _ school knew the whole story.

From what he could gather from the excitable third year Ravenclaw who had entered Ed’s classroom first, the student body was split on who to support on the matter. One side, the side who was not exactly a fan of Draco Malfoy, was firmly of the opinion that he’d deserved to be taken down a peg. Another thought that the punishment didn’t quite fit the crime of being a ‘tosser’ whatever  _ that  _ happened to mean. 

They were in agreement, however, that Professor Elric was badass as hell and deserved some kind of commendation; a sentiment that Roy happened to agree with whole heartedly.

Now, if he could just convince all of them to start calling Ed ‘Professor Mustang’ instead, he would really be in business. Possibly on the receiving end of a deceptively firm throw pillow thrown full force at his face with the best crafted automail money could, and couldn’t, buy. But in business nonetheless.

“When did you realize you were in love with the Professor?” One doe eyed Hufflepuff asked, refusing to acknowledge the given assignment with the kind of single mindedness only a teenager could truly muster. 

“Somewhere between them attempting to cause me grievous bodily harm for suggesting they may be slightly shorter than the average and having to grab them by the back of their coat to stop them running into a wall because they were either reading, under caffeinated, or both,” he answered, quite vaguely, considering that Ed had been attempting to eviscerate him for his exceptional arsenal of short jokes since they’d met and he’d had to grab Ed’s coat as recently as that morning.

Crickets.

Roy glanced up over the spectacles he only donned when there was no chance of Ed seeing him in them -- Ed didn’t even know that he  _ had  _ them; he wasn’t quite ready for the howling laughter that would ensue after the Gray Hair Incident the previous year. He preferred to simply… squint very hard when his spouse was in the vicinity-- to face a silent gaggle of magical teenagers. 

“Yes?” He asked, quirking one eyebrow in question; had he said something particularly odd? He’d assumed that the children would be quite used to Ed’s more murderous tendencies by then, having literally heard them tell a student to ‘kiss their eyebrows goodbye’ more than once, and the whole world knew that, before coffee, Ed could not be trusted with anything more mentally arduous than physically pushing the button on the actual coffee machine.

The very first time Ed had spent the night at Roy’s, long before they’d even so much as admitted a single untoward emotion to  _ themselves  _ let alone the other, they’d passed out on the overtly comfortable sofa in Roy’s study after staying up several hours past Ungodly trying to work out some kink or another in a project Ed had been working on, and Roy was rudely awoken the next morning -- mid afternoon -- by a godawful crash from the general direction of his kitchen.

Ed, trying to make coffee, had somehow collapsed an entire cabinet, pulled out a drawer of utensils, and lost the French Press to the depths of the freezer -- neither of them could make sense of that last one, even years later. 

“So, Ed… er, sorry, Professor Elric. They’ve always been like this?” Asked a small, dark haired girl wearing a yellow tie.

“Of course they’ve been, Vanessa,” replied a blonde girl in blue; she was the only person in the damn room to actually be working on the assignment, though she seemed to be an absolute marvel at multitasking --she also wasn’t making a dragon, like Ed had commanded, Roy wasn’t quite sure what it was but she was crafting with such purpose it was certainly  _ something  _ \--, “there’s no one else on Earth quite as genuine as Ed,” she peered up at Roy with clear gray eyes and smiled a tad airily, “isn’t that right, Sir?”

“That is certainly correct Miss…” he paused, thinking back to the attendance list, “Lovegood.”

Had Roy’s hearing been only slightly duller he completely would have missed a casually lounging Gryffindor student in the background hissing the word ‘ _ loony _ ’ under his breath. As it were, his hearing was quite good and he  _ had,  _ in fact, heard it. 

“Twenty five points from Gryffindor,” Roy’s eyes snapped to the offending teen, mouth twisting into a severe frown, “we do not speak ill of our classmates like that, McLaggen.” 

“You’re not even a teacher!” Cormac McLaggen protested loudly, dropping his chair back down onto all four legs, “You can’t dock points!”

Steepling his fingers across his face to hide the smirk blooming on his face, Roy simply raised one eyebrow in question. “I am the assigned substitute teacher for this class while Professor Elric is indisposed, and on top of that not  _ only  _ am I a judge in the Triwizard Tournament, I am also an international dignitary. I assure you, I am more than qualified to take points when you verbally abuse another student for nothing more heinous than thinking slightly differently from you. I orchestrated a government coup to stomp that thinking from my country and I  _ will _ not tolerate it in this classroom -- and you know damn well that Ed would say the same thing, which is why I suspect that you’ve never tried it when they were in the room.”

“Furthermore, as Miss. Lovegood is the only one here who has actually been doing her work; she is the only one who will be getting full marks for today. The rest of you will have a chance to finish it for homework tonight, due tomorrow for half credit -- otherwise it will rest as a rather large zero in the grade book.” 

He didn’t get to be the leader of his goddamn nation by letting a group of children bully each other senselessly. In fact, it was quite the bloody opposite and he’d be damned if he was going to allow meanspirited nonsense in his borrowed classroom.

Upon further introspection, it was possible Ed was rubbing off on him a little. Upon  _ further _ , further introspection he decided there was no possible way to spin those words in which the outcome would be, in any way, unwelcome.

It took a barked dismissal and some impressive scowling to get the children to stop whining and vacate the premises to allow him the ability to search for his spouse -- not that it was much of a search if he knew exactly where Ed was.

They liked to say that Alphonse was the predictable one but Roy was reasonably sure that it was just an Elric thing -- once you got to know one well enough, their thought process started to actually, terrifyingly enough, make sense.

Ed would be at Hagrid’s. 

Ed had never had any amount of ‘spare fucks’ to put towards their gastrointestinal health in the first place, and maintained the opinion that food made with love always tasted better. That thought even extended towards Rubeus Hagrid’s (in)famous rock cakes. 

Sure, Ed could only get down one and half in a two hour visit, but honestly the inability to scarf was probably what saved the little imp a lifetime of stomach aches. 

It was cold, even by his standards. Not as cold as Brigg’s, surely, but nothing could match that soulless, hopeless wasteland. The only thing colder than the snow in the north had been the slowly compressing organ that sputtered on where Roy had been sure his heart had once lived before it was swept away into an alternate dimension by a blonde rocket with a wicked grin. 

When he did finally find Ed he was going to get an earful for only draping his coat over his shoulders, despite the chill. It was an old argument that neither of them was ever going to win because Roy was never going to concede the fact that he only wore the coat that way to make it easier to drop it over  _ Ed’s  _ shoulders when the cold inevitably seeped into the muscle around the automail ports.

It was just another one of those habits that he’d fallen into without realizing. He never put his jacket on all the way; he always made his first cup of coffee black because he was only ever going to get  _ maybe  _ three sips out of it before Ed stumbled into the kitchen and claimed Roy’s mug for themself; he never left the good pens anywhere near Ed because their oral fixation was a menace to: society, Roy’s already very delicate sanity, the promise he’d made to Riza under threats of extreme violence to never have sex in the office, and superior stationary supplies everywhere.

Also, when Ed was running towards them at full speed waving their arms through the air, he tended to snap first and ask questions later. Except, he was surrounded by children on all sides and he didn’t want to accidentally set a student alight.

“Roy!” 

Ed slammed into their husbands chest with all the force of a freight train; their hair was falling free from the braid it had been tied back into; their cheeks were flushed from cold and exertion, bright pink staining high on their cheekbones; every rapid exhalation sent a puff of sparkling cold air into the scant space between them.

God, but Roy loved them so catastrophically. He would, if given the choice between the world and Ed, light the first match and watch it flicker in the molten gold of Ed’s eyes, he would admire the glow of his love’s hair backlit by flame, secure in his knowledge that he’d made the right choice.

He’d lost Ed once; it was agony, and that was before he ever knew what he was really missing. He’d lost Ed before he’d ever known what it was like to tuck them under his chin and count their heartbeats; before they’d shared a bowl of popcorn over a scary movie that really couldn’t hold a candle to the things they’d actually been through; before every argument, and every  _ I’m sorry _ , and every kiss hello. 

He couldn’t even consider losing them now.

“Hello, darling,” he said, wrapping his arms around Ed’s waist and summoning his most charming smile.

“Don’t be a sap, we don’t have time,” Ed was already wiggling out of their husband’s grasp, gripping his hand in their metal one and beginning to drag him towards the Forbidden Forest, “you have  _ got  _ to see this! You’re gonna fucking  _ die _ , Roy.”

“With how much blood, sweat, and tears we all shed to stop that from happening I should certainly hope not,” but nonetheless, Roy was soft and mushy and would deny Ed absolutely nothing so he simply turned his hand in Ed’s and laced their fingers together, “Lead the way.”

The hazy orange glow of the sunset that bathed the castle grounds like wisps of gauze was notably absent once they crossed the border of the forest, the heavy canopy above their heads cutting out the light and casting shadows in odd places that made Ed look older than they were. 

It was no easy task, aging Edward Elric. While Roy’s hair was slowly streaking through with silver and the lines that creased next to his eyes with every laugh, Ed was just as vibrant and radiant as they ever were. Every passing year just made them burn brighter.

Or maybe that was the fire.

“Welcome back, Elric!” Called a handsome man with a bright red ponytail, “You found your husband, I see!”

Ed laughed loudly, using the hand not holding Roy’s to wave wildly at the stranger, “Yo, Charlie! And yeah, it’s more like he found me, though.” They turned back to Roy, “Roy, this is Charlie Weasley; he works in Romania  _ with dragons _ !”

As if on cue, there was a roar from somewhere behind the wall of flames that seemed to be magically contained. Roy’s spine stiffened. Dragons? Actual dragons? They were definitely not native to the Forbidden Forest; they’d both done extensive research on the kind of creatures that could possibly kill them while on school grounds. Not counting the one Hagrid had won in a card game that one time, dragons had decidedly not made the list.

If there were suddenly dragons in the forest, probably brought in from Romania, two weeks before the first challenge of the tournament then--

“Those kids are going to have to fight  _ dragons _ ?” 


	11. we don't wanna make a move; we got all our lives to lose

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> :)

**_Sometime Just After Lunch_ **

“Another Weasley, huh?” Ed blinked up at the man who had yet to introduce himself but was  _ clearly  _ one of the fabled Older Siblings, “Your parents must  _ really _ like each other.”

The man laughed, and there was just enough of Ginny in the spread of his grin, and the Twins in the crinkles next to his eyes, and Ron in the freckles across the bridge of his nose that Ed decided to trust him immediately, despite the absolutely trash ass day they were having.

“I’m Charlie,” he confirmed, not waiting for permission before settling next to Ed on the edge of the Black Lake, “Hagrid told me about you, Professor Elric.”

“Then he told you to just call me ‘Ed’ or face the consequences.”

“He did say that, yes, but he also didn’t specify what those consequences would  _ be  _ and now I’m curious,” he shrugged one shoulder casually, leaning back on his hands, “the Hogwarts motto is to never tickle a sleeping dragon, but considering that’s my whole job description…”

Dragons? Ed perked up immediately, the thought of feeding Moody to a dragon immensely appealing, “What do you mean your job description?”

“I’ll show you mine if you show me yours,  _ Professor _ ,” Charlie winked. Actually, really winked at Ed and oh  _ man _ they liked this guy a lot.

“Deals like that always end well,” Ed said reasonably, rolling their shoulders once before clapping their hands, the array already dancing behind their closed eyelids. It wasn’t anything fancy, nothing that would draw too much attention from the classrooms that had outward facing windows, just a simple bit of alchemy that dragged the sand from the riverbank up and molded it into the shape of a hand gesture that Ed was almost positive was universally Rude As Fuck.

Charlie let out a low whistle, expression settling somewhere between deeply impressed and mildly terrified -- which is just where Ed preferred it, “I never was much good at alchemy,” he admitted.

Ed hummed, “Your lots' alchemy is a load of shit anyways,” they said, and didn't add on that Flamel was a hack which meant they got to have a biscuit when they got back to their office; _fuck yeah_ , “you ever want a quick lesson on Amestrian alchemy, come find me. If you’re anything like your siblings you’ll have no trouble picking it up.”

Beaming as they watched one of the Giant Squid’s tentacles lazily breach the surface of the lake, as if waving to them, Charlie tilted his head to the side to get a better look at Ed. 

Ed turned to face him as well, arching one eyebrow in an almost perfect imitation of their husband, “Is there something on my face, Weasley?”

Brilliantly red hair catching in the cold winter sunlight, Charlie shook his head, “No,” he said, “it’s just nice to be able to picture the face of the person who goes out of their way to help my family.” Ed’s cheeks burned, “It doesn’t hurt that it’s a  _ nice  _ face,” and there was the wink again.

“Shut the fuck up,” Ed hissed, ducking their head, “And as for your family, they’re  _ good  _ kids. There’s nothing wrong with them -- society is failing them, not the other way around. And as, honestly, one of like  _ three  _ competent adults on this campus what the fuck kind of human would I be if I didn’t help where I could?”

Blatant disbelief, “You don’t actually realize all you’ve done for them, do you?” The older Weasley turned back to the lake, “Mum’s been down in the Muggle village recently, looking for books on Dyslexia for Ron. She’s spoken to Muggle psychologists about how to better help Ginny process her trauma. Fred and George haven’t gotten detention in over a month.” A pause, Charlie’s lips twitched into a wry smile, “Too bad you weren’t here last year. Maybe you could have done something to make Percy less of a git.”

Having only heard stories of the third (they think) Weasley, Ed could only snort. 

“I hear you even have Draco Malfoy behaving.”

“Behaving is a strong word,” Ed said, because one didn’t drastically alter their behavior over night, and Draco could still be one haughty little asshole when he wanted to be, “but we’re working on it. It’s like I keep telling your sister, healing isn’t  _ linear _ .”

Ed couldn’t count on the hands of every person they’d ever met how many times  _ their  _ therapist had had to say that to them before it finally pierced their thick skull.

“Healing?” Charlie asked, “What does a  _ Malfoy  _ have to heal from?”

The look Ed turned on him would have sent at least four of their subordinates back in Amestris running for the hills; according to Riza it was very similar to the look they’d donned right before they’d punched God in the face.

“That, Charlie. He has to heal from  _ that _ . People hear his family name and throw all of their preconceived notions on top of him, forgetting that he is an actual  _ child _ . Yes, his father is exactly the Voldemort supporting, pureblood asshole you think he is. Draco is  _ not  _ his father. Draco is a tired, broken child who realized long ago that it’s easier to mold yourself to the box people shove you into rather than try to break out of it.”

Silence. 

“I never thought of it like that,” Charlie admitted softly.

“No one ever does,” Ed said, the knots their internal organs had tied themselves into loosening just a little, “My dad was a 400 year old slave-turned-Demi-God from an extinct civilization that was sacrificed to make philosophers’ stones. I punched God in the face.” Ed shrugged, “The sins of the father don’t transfer over.” Ignoring Charlie’s dropped jaw, Ed stretched their arms high above their head and arched their back like a cat, “Now, you said something about Dragons?”

“Uh…” To his credit, Charlie recovered faster than most people when faced with Ed’s past exploits, “right. The Dragons. That’s what… I do. I work with dragons in Romania-- you punched  _ who  _ in the face?”

“God.” Ed rolled their eyes, “Well, technically a homunculus who forced me and four other alchemists who had attempted human transmutation to open the gate of Truth so he could try to absorb God and thus become him. It’s very complicated, I can draw you a diagram later if you want. If you work in Romania why are you at Hogwarts?”

Charlie spent a moment just mouthing the word ‘homunculus’ incredulously before physically shaking himself, “Do you want to  _ see  _ a dragon?”

What the fuck kind of stupid ass question was  _ that _ ?

By ‘a dragon’, Charlie had actually meant  _ four  _ dragons, currently being wrangled by Charlie’s team from the sanctuary he worked for in Romania and Hagrid, who seemed to be having the time of his life. Ed could  _ relate _ .

“Holy shit,” they breathed, stepping closer than they probably should have to peer at the, by their standards, most beautiful of the bunch; a huge beast with smooth, crimson scales. Ed wanted to touch the golden fringe around its neck more than they could say they’d wanted to do anything in a very long time.

It’s not like they hadn’t seen a dragon before, but that dragon had been  _ Envy _ , and actively trying to kill them, and  _ running commentary _ which really took all of the fun out of it.

Flexing their metal fingers inside their glove, Ed was moving before they’d realized what they were doing -- which was forgoing any amount of common sense and self preservation that everyone in their entire life had ever tried to impart on them because there was a  _ dragon  _ and they were going to  _ pet it _ .

Each species was different, each kept in it’s own magically reinforced pen, so Ed had less trouble than one would expect getting into the actual enclosure.

“ _ Ed? _ ” Charlie called, alarmed, but Ed just turned and grinned, shooting their new friend a thumbs up.

“Ed?” Hagrid had turned, eyes catching Ed in the process of constructing a cage for themself to stand inside, like one would to go swimming with sharks -- it wouldn’t do much against flames but, like, look who they married? “What’re you doing?”

Grin only widening, Ed answered, “I’m going to pet a dragon!” before shooting themself skyward on a stone pillar.

The dragon hadn’t noticed them before, too intent on trying to turn Charlie’s team and their efforts to contain it into a pile of ash, but it was hard to ignore something that popped up directly in its face.

There was a cacophony of worried yelling, a couple of ‘what the  _ fuck _ ’s and Hagrid and Charlie repeatedly calling their name like that would do anything when Ed was already within roasting distance.

No, they’d made this decision and if this is how they went out, well, Roy would understand. The dragon’s golden eyes blinked at Ed slowly, it’s pupils narrowing into slits and it looked so much like a lion that Ed fell a little in love.

“Hi,” they breathed, which was rather stupid; the dragon wouldn’t understand them, and in the grand scheme of things, if it  _ did  _ decide that they would be better off a tad bit toasted, ‘hi’ would be the worst last words in history.

A low, rumbling growl came from the beast’s throat, a warning if Ed had ever heard one. Smoke puffed from it’s nostrils. Its lips lifted away from its gums to show off rows of sharp, sharp teeth. 

Reaching through the bars of their cage with their metal hand, Ed tentatively brushed gloved fingers across the shimmering red snout. The scales were smooth and shiny, like they’d been polished the way that Winry was always on them to polish their limbs. 

A short cloud of flame erupted, not nearly as large or as hot as Ed had been expecting, from the creature’s nose, catching the fabric of Ed’s glove and spreading up their coat before they could properly pat it out.

Someone below shouted in alarm but Ed just waved his flesh hand, tilting their still extended hand so the firelight caught their automail; they were fine. Petting a dragon was worth having to fix their coat.

Undaunted, Ed replaced their hand upon the dragon’s snout, stroking the now hot metal up and down gently, making small soothing noises in the back of their throat, like they had done for Elicia a million times to help her get to sleep.

After a long, considering look, where Ed felt distinctly like the dragon was staring into their soul and  _ judging  _ them, bright golden eyes closed and the creature huffed a sigh, almost like it was very grudgingly accepting Ed’s affection.

Holy shit. 

_ Holy shit, they had to tell Roy. _

Right after the bastard was done doing Ed’s job. For the moment, they had three other dragons to charm.

  
  


Okay, so, in retrospect, sprinting directly at their husband was not their  _ best  _ plan. Usually, they only did that when something or someone was chasing them and that something or someone was in dire need of an immediate roasting. 

Since there was nothing behind Ed aside from their excitement and the grounds were full of teenagers who should Not get roasted, they should have thought it through and approached the situation a little more calmly.

But, eh, fuck it.

“Roy!” They called, like the man  _ hadn’t  _ seen them coming, but sometimes Ed just liked to say his name, if just to reassure themself that he was real. And to be fair, he  _ looked  _ like a dream, with cold reddened cheeks and hair just the perfect amount of messy and an expression on his face that screamed  _ I Adore You  _ so intensely that, even years later, Ed was a little afraid of it.

_ And _ , they added to the list of Reasons Roy Mustang Is Too Good To Exist, Let Alone Be Married To My Dumb Ass, he smelled  _ incredible _ . They’d run straight into his chest, all but leapt into his arms, and the fucker had just caught them, had wrapped his arms around them and smiled down at them like they were best thing he’d ever seen (even though Ed knew, for a fact, that they were disheveled and sweaty and slightly singed).

“Hello, darling,” Roy said, and Ed was pressed so close that they could  _ feel  _ the words as they rumbled in their husband’s chest as his smile slipped from his Most Charming Professional smile into the genuinely charming smile that he only used for Ed, probably without his notice.

He thought he was so smart, so good at hiding who he was after years and years of doing exactly that, that he always forgot that Ed could read him like a goddamn book. 

Shit, Ed wanted to kiss that stupid, dopey smile, but they had a strict PDA policy during school hours. They wiggled free of his hold before they broke their own rules, because that bastard was nothing if not tempting. 

“Don’t be a sap,” they commanded, wrapping their hand around Roy’s tightly enough that he wouldn’t be able to get free without a bit of fight and starting to pull him back the way they came, back towards the  _ dragons _ , “we don’t have time. You have  _ got _ to see this, you’re gonna fucking  _ die,  _ Roy!” 

“With how much blood, sweat, and tears we all shed to stop that from happening I should certainly hope not,” Roy said wryly, shooting Ed a look out of the corner of his eye before he turned his hand in Ed’s and laced their fingers together, “Lead the way.”

Shit, Ed had the best husband in the world. And they were about to give him the best present they could give to someone who specialized in fire.

They knew the way through the forest to the enclosures and carefully lead Roy through the underbrush until the flames came into view, along with the newest Weasley in Ed’s ever growing collection.

“Welcome back, Elric!” Charlie called, his cheeks dimpling with the force of his grin, “You found your husband, I see!”

“Yo, Charlie!” Ed laughed loudly, using the hand not holding Roy’s to wave, “And yeah, it’s more like he found me, though.” They admitted before turning back to Roy for introductions, “Roy, this is Charlie Weasley,” like his surname wasn’t immediately obvious (seriously, Ed was going to diagram these fuckers’ genetics one of these days. Red hair was  _ recessive _ ,) “he works in Romania with dragons!”

As if to prove their point, Ed’s favorite, the Chinese Fireball that Al’s voice was incessantly calling  _ Cinnamon  _ in the back of their mind, let out a particularly annoyed grumble that had Ed frowning -- what were they doing to their child? She’d been sleeping when they’d left.

Then Roy spoke, and Ed felt like someone had dumped a bucket of ice water over the top of their head because they hadn’t even  _ considered _ \-- the first task was coming up, there were  _ four  _ of them… Ed had just been worried about getting to  _ pet  _ one and--

“Those kids are going to have to fight dragons?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> if you don't think ed would risk it all to pet a dragon then idk what show you watched but


	12. C'mon crooked stars don't you want to line up?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> okay so I went ahead and started the prequel to this which will definitely contain more of Ed and Roy being dumb and schmoopy
> 
> just hit the previous work button 
> 
> this is now a SERIES i have dubbed Into Focus
> 
> hell yeah

Considering they’d spent their whole adolescence being an angry, feral goblin child traipsing across the country on a mission to literally  _ punch God in the face _ , Ed should probably be concerned with just how often Dumbledore made them see  _ red _ .

_ Dragons!  _

It was like a terrible joke -- four teenagers and four dragons walk into a bar. 

The punchline was just a literal, actual punch delivered express mail from Ed’s metal fist into the face of whoever’s idea it had been.

As it was, Roy’s hand on the small of their back, unnaturally warm even through the fabric of their trusty red coat --unearthed from the sedimentary layer of their trunk in a fit of rage induced personal archeology -- was the only thing that kept them from physically crawling over the headmaster’s desk and throttling the man.

That, and the fact that Bagman and Crouch were also in the room and Ed was  _ vaguely  _ sure that would count as an international incident and Crouch was a ministry official who could  _ probably  _ arrest them and then Roy would have to do so much paperwork and Riza would have to shoot someone.

Honestly, they should have brought Riza with them if just for the intimidation factor, Truth knew that woman was  _ terrifying,  _ but they’d sent her to collect Harry and Cedric and shepherd them into Ed’s office. Maxime and Karkaroff knew about the dragons, which meant Fleur and Viktor did as well and like  _ hell  _ Ed wasn’t going to level the playing field.

Fuck, Ed was going to actively tip the scales in their favor.

Right after they were done yelling.

“The champions were well aware of the danger of the tasks--” Crouch was trying to say.

“Yeah, the three who  _ signed up for it _ ,” Ed snarled, “you couldn’t, I dunno, maybe  _ baby proof  _ the fucking tournament for the actual child? The Chinese Fireball roasted my coat!”

“Why were you so close?” Bagman asked, curious.

Ed flapped a hand, “Roy wasn’t around and he’s like… 76.3 percent of my impulse control.” 

Roy hissed out a swear between his teeth, “And that’s the point, isn’t it? You mentioned showing Ed the dragons to Hagrid, didn’t you? When you knew I wouldn’t be around because I was covering their classes.”

Dumbledore remained silent, his fingers calmly twined together atop the dark wood of his desk.

“That’s why Charlie came to seek me out. You were hoping he’d soften me up to the whole thing before I realized that you were going to put them up against  _ my students _ .” Ed was going to  _ kill him _ .

Dumbledore sighed, and fuck him even that sounded calm, it was like dealing with Roy before they learned how to see past his Bastard mask, “Charlie Weasley,” he said, “was already eager to meet you, even before his arrival. His siblings are quite fond of you, Professor Elric.”

“Well, I’ve never tried to kill them,” Ed pointed out with all of the dryness of crossing the Great Desert in July.

“I assigned Hagrid to help him set up in the forest. If you happened to come up as a topic of conversation that was not of my doing.”

Manipulative fuck.

“So, what  _ is  _ your doing, then, Albus?” and if their voice was just on the other side of acidic, well. Mind ya business? “What unimaginable horrors are these kids going to have to go through for your entertainment?” Their gaze, narrowed and golden and absolutely  _ daring _ the three gathered officials to say something they didn’t like, shifted from Dumbledore, to Bagman, to Crouch. “What’s the first task?”

The first task was ‘simple’, to use Bagman’s stupid fucking word. And Ed supposed that, in theory, it was. There would be a golden egg settled in each dragon’s nest, among her actual eggs, and the champions had to retrieve that egg. 

It was simple to  _ describe _ , but trying to get around a mama dragon to get at her eggs? Ed thought, briefly, of Izumi and what would happen to anyone who tried to hurt them or Al. As fast as they had begun, they stopped thinking about it.

That was a  _ lot  _ of blood, and they’d once been swallowed by Gluttony and stuck in actual purgatory so their scale was slightly skewed. 

Harry and Cedric had claimed a table in Ed’s classroom (Cedric using a chair while Harry planted his bony ass right on the tabletop like the disaster he was when nobody was looking) playing a game of exploding snap while Riza paged through a large, leather bound book she’d gotten from the library. How she sweet talked Pince, Ed didn’t know. The woman was a Harpie, but then again Riza got Roy to both submit his reports on time  _ and  _ get him home in time for dinner. 

She was already looking up at the door when Ed and Roy entered, having heard them coming a mile and a half away, and the two boys jumped about a foot in the air when Ed slammed the door open so hard it bounced off of the opposite wall and nearly smacked them in the face.

Any other time the whole situation would have sent them into hysterics. 

“Hawkeye,” Ed greeted with a terse nod, “thanks for keeping an eye on these two troublemakers.” Cedric opened his mouth to protest. Harry rolled his eyes. 

“My pleasure, Ed,” Riza smiled warmly and something that had been wiggling around behind Ed’s rips, something slimy and congealing, tying itself into knots, all but disappeared in the face of Riza Hawkeye: Best Friend of The Bastard, not Riza Hawkeye: Military Professional. 

Rolling their shoulders, Ed reached up and all but ripped the tie from their hair; a headache the size of Drachma was already brewing all on its own, no need to encourage it. They pursed their lips, tilted their head, and crossed the room in quick strides to rescue a piece of chalk from the container.

Upon further inspection they decided that their chalkboard was simply not big enough.

One clap later, it swallowed the entire wall. That would still be tight...but doable if they wrote small.

Roy said something to the kids behind them, but they didn’t pay attention to exactly what it was he was saying. They should have bartered with Truth for the ability to multitask; they could have given up their, fuck, caffeine tolerance. It would be a win-win. 

They’d save so much money on coffee. On the individual, household, workplace, and national sense.

Because Ed did the math and their coffee consumption literally raised the national budget by a few decimals.

Chalk scratched in Ed’s ears and it was such a comforting sound they were seriously considering special ordering it on tape -- some people had whale sounds, Ed had chalk. It was a niche market, sure, but there had to be at least a few other people out there as fuckin’ weird as they were.

Equations were easy, they came to Ed like breathing, quickly flowing like the creek they’d splashed around in with Al and Winry back before their world imploded, like Mom’s favorite dress had swayed around her ankles when she’d walk. Even when they couldn’t  _ do  _ alchemy, they could still do this.

People -- people were hard. People were confusing, and volatile, and dangerous. People  _ lied _ . Equations didn’t lie. Equations didn’t put people in danger for the hell of it. 

They could, however, get people out of it if Ed played their cards  _ just  _ right. 

“Ed,” a familiar, gentle hand tugged at a lock of their hair, just hard enough to get their attention, “what’s going on in there?” Roy wrapped his knuckles against Ed’s skull lightly.

“Cheating,” Ed admitted, chewing on the inside of their lip and squinting at the board, “Also, you know, revolutionizing the field of alchemy. But. Mostly cheating.”

“How is ‘revolutionizing alchemy’ less important than ‘cheating’?” Asked Cedric, and huh. The kids were still there.

Ed  _ had  _ summoned them. And then promptly ignored them for Math.

… Yeah, that checks out. Somewhere across the wards Al was laughing at them.

“I’ve revolutionized alchemy half a dozen times,” they flapped their metal hand, narrowly avoiding socking Roy in the stomach. In their defense: they’d known the man for, like, a decade and he should know to duck at this point for  _ fucks  _ sake, “Cheating is new.”

Roy shrugged one shoulder, safely on Ed’s left side to avoid any more possible visits to the hospital wing for accidentally broken ribs, “It’s true. I married a genius. A beautiful, compassionate, strong--”

Ed clapped their hand over his mouth, “Bastard,” they grumbled, ignoring the heat in their cheeks, “you have all the same knowledge that I do, you’re just lazy.”

Shrugging once again, Roy pressed a kiss to Ed’s gloved palm before removing it from his face, “Never claimed otherwise,” he stated, finally taking a minute to actually  _ look  _ at the board, at what Ed was trying to do. “Overlapping arrays?” He asked.

“Wait, you can do that?” Harry piped up, looking interested and sliding from the desk to pad over to the board.

“No,” Riza sighed, long suffering and fond, “I’ll go ask the elves for some coffee, shall I?”

Roy rolled his eyes skyward; Ed looked at her like she’d hung the moon.

“Why did I marry the Bastard when you exist?” They asked.

“No accounting for taste,” she said, waiting until she was nearly out of the room, and more importantly: far beyond the range of any of Ed’s limbs, before she tacked on, “and I don’t date people shorter than I am.”

The click of the door closing didn’t quite manage to drown out the outrage.

As if the month couldn’t get any more complicated: Ron wasn’t speaking to Harry. 

Ron thought Harry,  _ Harry _ , put his own name in the Goblet of Fire. 

Not even Ed could make this shit up.

Harry, predictably, was less than thrilled. He’d taken to haunting Ed’s office any time he wasn’t sleeping or in class; moping like a lost and kicked puppy.

“You’re missing half an eyebrow and haven’t slept in a week,” Ed quirked an eyebrow at the teenager lounging on their office sofa with a plate of sandwiches, “and he thinks you did this on  _ purpose _ ?”

Harry threw up the hand that wasn’t holding his lunch, “That’s what  _ I  _ said,” he complained, “and then he brought up that I’m suddenly making nice with Malfoy at an  _ awfully convenient  _ time. Convenient? For  _ who,  _ Ronald? For who.” 

Well, the kid has definitely spent too much time with both Jean  _ and  _ Draco if those dramatics were to be taken into account. But they weren’t gonna hold that against him right that second, he seemed a little fragile. 

“I don’t know how many different ways I’m going to have to explain to Draco to him,” Roy sighed, sprawled in his favorite chair, somehow artful despite the fact that Ed knew from personal experience that the man had approximately fourteen knees and twice as many elbows, “should we draw him a picture?”

Ed snorted over the pile of papers they were grading -- further proving their own point that assigning any homework that wasn’t practical alchemy was  _ torture _ for all involved. The students didn’t wanna write the essay’s and they sure as fuck didn’t wanna read them. But still, symbology was important and it wasn’t even like Ed was asking them to do any like…  _ deep personal introspection _ , it was basic alchemical symbols, what they represented, and what best balanced them in a  _ standard  _ transmutation. Literally stuff Ed and Al had taught themselves by the time they were five.

“You think a crayon rendering of Draco and Harry holding hands under a rainbow is going to change his mind?” Ed asked, blinking innocently at Roy’s scowl.

“My artistic ability is leaps and bounds beyond yours,  _ Edward _ . I still remember the picture you drew of Princess Mei’s panda. It’s no wonder that nobody knew what you were looking for.”

Cedric entered in a flurry of robes, tugging a red faced Draco behind him and slamming the door shut behind them. Both looked angry, though Draco’s pale everything really made his fury stand out like a sore thumb.

Ed straightened their spine, “What’s going on?”

“Bloody Weasley,” Draco growled, stalking forward and snagging a sandwich from Harry’s plate (dutifully ignoring the squawk) before pushing the other boy’s legs off of the second cushion and plopping himself down in their place, “I have half a mind to hex  _ his  _ eyebrows off.”

Harry winced, “Is he still--”

“Being an unbelievable prat? Yes.” Draco took a savage bite of his sandwich, “And coming from  _ me _ \--”

“You’re just lucky I happened by when I did or your bloody arse would be sitting in detention for  _ life _ , Professor Moody was two feet away.”

Physically twitching at the name, Ed suppressed a growl and gripped their pen a little tighter, “Something about that man is  _ not  _ right.”

“Hm, weird,” Roy said conversationally, like he wasn’t three seconds from getting divorced, “you’d think you would be fast friends with a short, feral gremlin with no manners.”

The pen embedded itself half an inch to the right of Roy’s temple. The bastard didn’t even blink, simply wrapped his impossibly long fingers around the implement and tugged it free, making a sad sort of noise in the back of his throat at the hole it left behind before a light flurry of sparks mended the damage.

“I wish you wouldn’t do that,” he commented idly, “you know how I feel about fixing upholstery with alchemy. And I  _ like  _ this chair.”

“For the last fuckin’ time,” Ed shoved themself away from their desk and the stack of ungraded papers that rest upon it with a disgusted huff, “it doesn’t leave a weird smell. The couch in your office has  _ always  _ smelled like that.”

“I resent that insinuation.”

“Resent it all you want, I don’t give a shit. Cedric, my favorite student, the only human being in this castle who has never decreased my lifespan through sheer stress?” 

The Yellow student winced, giving a resounding thumbs-down, “I can’t channel enough energy into the circle,” he admitted, “the cage starts to form, but it’s brittle and only goes halfway up before it fizzles out.”

Ed and Roy shared a look.

“Overlapping arrays--” 

“A circle built upon a circle  _ made  _ of circles,” Ed was scrambling for their chalk before they’d even finished speaking. 

“In what universe did that make sense?” Draco asked around his pilfered sandwich.

Ed grinned over their shoulder, “At least two,” they answered with so much finality it dared anyone to question them while simultaneously promising that there would be  _ reckoning  _ for those who did, “but no, here, look.” 

Their gloves acted as a great chalk eraser, and that bit based on Ripley’s bullshit wasn’t getting them anywhere anyway and it took up a solid chunk of the bottom left of the board. 

“Oh good,” Roy sighed, “I hate that man.” 

“There’s a version of  _ Twelve Gates _ in the central library,” Ed said as they worked, drawing a large circle in the newly freed space, “that has handwritten annotations by Van Helmont on why Ripley was full of it,” little x’s followed the circle, spaced evenly around its circumference, “that now has handwritten annotations by  _ me  _ on why they both suck.” The final x was surrounded by its own tiny circle.

“You vandalized a library book?” 

“Technically, I corrected it,” Ed turned to the gathered students, “you three; asses over here.”

The scurrying of teenagers was never a quiet nor particularly coordinated affair, Ed knew this from  _ being  _ one, though they’d taken it a step further and made it their mission in life to be as erratic and brash as possible -- a mission that lead to  _ substantial  _ property damage and a history of getting shit done in half the time it took any other military moron.

Still, they winced when Draco’s shin caught the corner of the coffee table. 

“Remember the other night, when I was cheating?”

“And revolutionizing alchemical theory,” Cedric smiled wryly, both cheeks dimpling, “we remember.”

“ _ I  _ don’t,” Draco argued, “why don’t you gits tell me anything?”

“We’re telling you now,” Ed motioned to the board impatiently, “I had the idea to create a set of overlapping arrays to help Harry and Cedric in the first task. Now, this diagram is the basic idea. I haven’t figured out the rest of the math, but the big picture is this.”

“The x wrapped in a circle is the starting point,  _ your  _ starting point, Cedric, in this case,” they waited for the blonde to nod, “the other x’s are the other array’s that the first one is going to activate -- normally, the question of control would be raised because that’s a lot of power with only one outlet  _ except,”  _ they were grinning, they couldn’t help it, “note the big circle.”

“The arrays themselves are their own array,” Draco muttered, lifting into his toes and hooking his chin over Harry’s shoulder to get a better look, “so all of the power is being continuously funneled without risking a rebound.”

Sharing another look with his spouse, Roy nodded, “Exactly. Your grasp on this is better than most,” he said, impressed.

Draco’s face reddened even as he preened, “I got Mr. Falman to check out some books for me from the Restricted Section. My father thinks Potter here won’t last ten minutes in the tournament and I’ve decided I’m going to help prove him wrong.”

Ed nodded, holding out their flesh hand for a high five, “Nothing motivates a fourteen year old like paternal spite, am I right?”

“Bloody right,” Draco returned the high five to a horrified chorus of denials.

“No, dear.”

“Absolutely not.”

“Can’t relate.”

Shrugging, Ed went back to the board, “Sucks to suck,” they said, “now, Harry. What ideas have you had to grab the egg and not get roasted?”

Harry shifted uncomfortably -- so much as he could with Draco still firmly plastered to his back like a touch starved koala, “Well, Moody wants me to use my flying.”

The chalk snapped in Ed’s fingers. 

The fact. That that  _ goblin  _ of a man. Thought he had the right. To talk to. And  _ recommend  _ things. To Ed’s kids. 

They had half a mind to stalk down to the DaDa classroom and very casually shove a metal foot up his squat, paranoid little ass. Show him some  _ constant vigilance _ when Poppy has to come remove Ed’s toes from between his  _ teeth. _

“Ed,” Roy called after them, “where are you going?”

Probably to the tickle the pear and con Dobby out of some dessert, but where's the fun in _saying_ that? “To get ice cream or commit a felony,” they responded, “I’ll decide on the way.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ed is such a dorothy


	13. Goodbye to all my darkness there's nothing here but light

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *sad mare noises*
> 
> (the chapter isnt sad but i am ya feel?)
> 
> (fuck 2020)
> 
> uhhh all my chapter titles are song lyrics but i keep forgetting to tell you which songs. This is from Farewell Wanderlust by The Amazing Devil shit ill put a full list in the end notes of the story as a whole i guess???

Roy had inserted himself into the handling of the four dragons with all of the grace of the man who had instigated a coup d’etat against immortal, hyper-powerful artificial humans -- which is to say, he walked up to Charlie Weasley, charmed the pants off of the man, and ended up taking the whole mess straight out of Crouch and Bagman’s incompetant hands.

It took all of one afternoon and earned him his absolute favorite expression from Ed; awestruck gratitude. Nevermind that every one of Ed’s expressions was his favorite; even the one that meant he was about to get a metal foot to the tailbone.

He almost wished it had taken longer, simply because he didn’t have any time to  _ appreciate  _ the look since Riza saw his free evening and handed him a stack of paperwork that would have come to about knee height on  _ Hagrid _ .

“Sir,” she said, and to anyone else it would have come off as cordial; but her other hand was on her hip where her gun lay hidden, and her narrowed eyes read ‘ _ or else’ _ in large, bold print. 

Roy didn’t whine -- he didn’t. He was the leader of his nation. He had rebuilt Ishval from the ground up, re-funded the education system, dismantled all of Bradley’s war-mongering sub-sects that were hidden beneath eighteen layers of bullshit bureaucracy, and legalized same-sex marriage in  _ three years _ in office. He did not whine when faced with two weeks of backlogged paperwork.

First, he drafted the letter to Xing. He’d have Ed read it over and add their own message (to be then carefully  _ re _ read by Roy or Riza because the time that Ed had managed to sneak in a ‘ _ prepare your tongue for the licking of my SAC, asshole’  _ to Emperor Ling was not soon to be forgotten.) 

While the thought was on his mind, he scribbled out a quick paragraph to Alphonse, who would be thrilled that Alkahestry was going to be taught more widely in Amestris -- he was still technically a university student but that hadn’t stopped every medical establishment in Central from commissioning his help since he was the only damn person in the country who knew what he was doing.

Olivier Armstrong had asked for his permission to send a small platoon of troops into Drachma -- denied. Emphatically. 

While Roy agreed that things were getting dicy, Amestris would not be the first to act. They would respond with  _ gusto _ but the country’s days of warmongering and expanding borders were well and truly over, sorry General. 

Briggs troops were to stay on their side of the line. 

She seemed to expect his answer because enclosed in the second envelope from her was, of course, an impressive doodle of himself with Oliver’s sword to his throat while her free hand held up her middle finger.

Roy set that paper aside -- Ed would love it, the feral little imp. They seemed to be under the impression that the strange but surprisingly strong friendship between the two blondes (Blonde Squared, as Ed tended to call them. Cubed if Riza joined them.) would keep her from  _ actually  _ murdering their husband.

The Cretan trade routes were proving to be the trickiest of the bunch because Creta and Aerugo were like  _ this _ and Ed, beautiful, glorious,  _ loud, opinionated  _ Ed, had caused a lot of waves in Aerugo because they hadn’t quite gotten the memo that slavery was  _ bad  _ and Ed had a whole lot to say about that.

So, to quote their golden menace, Creta was being a petty little bitch about it.

It called for a level of diplomacy that, frankly, Roy couldn’t be bothered to summon at the moment. There were some other, more mundane things that he could occupy himself with and still appease Riza. Applications to take the state alchemist exam in the Spring, vetting the latest survivors of officer training, a resplendent, young blonde who planted themself dead center in the middle of his desk and curled their lips in a wicked, brilliant grin.

Riza would be less pleased about that last one, but Roy couldn’t have been happier.

“Hello, love of my life,” he said, gazing more than a little adoringly up at their spouse -- they’d showered and hadn’t bothered to do more than comb out their hair and throw on a pair of leggings and Roy’s oldest, softest T-shirt. 

Backlit by the gentle light from the desk lamp and kicking their legs in a way that was more of a  _ sway  _ than anything for all the force behind it, they seemed to glow. 

“Shut up,” golden eyes rolled but there was no hiding the pleased tilt of their lips and the dusting of pink across their high cheekbones, highlighting the delicate smattering of freckles across the bridge of their nose -- he wanted to count each an every one of them with his lips, “I can go and let you get back to your paperwork if you wanna be  _ gross _ .”

Feigning offense, Roy settled his hands on the incredibly soft fabric of Ed’s leggings, fingers splayed wide,“Gross? Well that’s disappointing; I was going for irresistible.” 

“If you wanted to be irresistible you’d transmute yourself to be made of steak,” Ed replied, even as they scooted just the tiniest bit closer, leaning in until Roy could smell the rosewater in their shampoo.

Sliding his hands upwards until he could curl his fingers around the jut of their spouse’s hips, “Is that so?” 

One firm tug and Roy had a lap full of Ed as forgotten paperwork fluttered to the floor. Breathless laughter worked its way out of Ed’s throat as Roy pressed slow, open mouthed kisses against their pulse point. 

Ed was like sunshine; too bright to look at straight on. Warm and pliant beneath his hands, nose nuzzling against Roy’s temple, lips parted in a gilded grin.

Roy was under no illusion that he was keeping Ed anywhere -- that Ed  _ could  _ be kept. You could clasp your hands around them as tight as you could and their light would still leak out from between your fingers. 

Ed was with him because they  _ chose  _ to be; every second they stood behind him, every smile, every brush of skin, was a choice on Ed’s part. 

Hands, one warm flesh, the other cool metal, wound themselves in Roy’s hair and  _ tugged _ , successfully dragging him back to the reality of the living angel with their mouth pressed to his pulse.

“You know,” Ed said, breath ghosting over Roy’s ear, “I’ve been bent over  _ your  _ desk, but my office has never been private enough before.”

And. Well.

Roy was only a  _ man _ . A man who was very, very weak for the spark of amber mischief in Ed’s eyes, and the smooth glide of their thumb over his cheek, and how sweet and soft and  _ vulnerable  _ they were, smelling of flowers and tasting like toothpaste and pressed so close that Roy could feel their heartbeat quicken as he kissed them.

Fingers ghosted up the back of Roy’s sweater, urging it up and over his head and surging back in for another filthy kiss the second it cleared his mouth. 

For just a moment, less than, probably, when the soft yarn was covering his eyes and forcing his arms to stand erect (ha) over his head, Roy felt completely helpless -- blind and bound and at the complete mercy of the only person in any world that he’d ever trust enough to let himself into that situation in the first place.

And he found he kind of liked it, if the way his hips hitched up without his consent and his breath caught in his throat was any indication.

Ed pulled back just far enough to raise one perfect eyebrow at him, kiss bruised lips curling into a smirk that they had definitely learnt from him, the brat, “What part of that did it for you?”

_ You _ , was the first thing Roy thought to say. Because that was really the gist of it, wasn’t it? The root of the phenomenon. It wasn’t the action itself but rather the person who caused it. But he’d known Ed long enough, (that was a lie; there was no such thing as long enough, with Ed. He could know them until the world ended in fiery immolation and it still wouldn’t be enough time.) to know that a cop out answer like that would only get him a wry look and fingers dug into the ticklish spot just under his ribs.

Instead, he chose his words carefully, “I don’t remember being blind being that pleasant.”

The other eyebrow joined it’s mate as Ed’s smirk turned into a grin turned into something absolutely  _ feral  _ that sent a solid shiver down the length of Roy’s spine.

_ God _ , speaking of immolation. For such a drafty ass castle, Roy was reasonably sure he was going to succumb to heat stroke sometime shortly if Ed kept looking at him like that. 

Like he was edible.

“I mean,” Ed said, and something about their voice had Roy biting back a groan in response, he wanted to tilt his head back in submission and let Ed do whatever they wanted as long as they kept talking to him like  _ that _ , “you do have a lot of ties.”

Oh,  _ god _ .

“I do,” he managed to gasp out, “but that would involve one of us moving.”

Lips pursed, Ed seemed to ponder the dilemma for a few, rapid heartbeats before deciding against it and settling their weight more firmly in Roy’s lap, circling their hips in a way that - _ god fuck fuck fuck-  _ should be illegal.

“Next time,” they decided.

Roy couldn’t help but agree, there was nothing in heaven nor hell that could make him move away from Ed right that second. He was caught in orbit like the solar system to the sun -- nothing mattered but the star in his lap, wiggling as they tried to get out of their shirt while still touching as much of Roy as possible. 

_ Next time. _

* * *

  
  


Hermione was missing. 

Well, she wasn’t in class. Which was probably more worrisome than if they just couldn’t  _ find  _ her, because nothing Ed had ever seen (and they’d seen some  _ shit,  _ ask anyone) would keep that girl from schoolwork. She embraced learning with open arms and such heartfelt enthusiasm that it made Ed’s heart  _ swell _ .

Ed waited a full minute after the technical start of class, staring very intently at her empty chair, willing her to materialize in front of their eyes, excitedly proclaiming that she’d figured out how to apparate on school grounds. 

When she didn’t, they turned to Ron, who was sitting between Dean and Seamus, and Harry, who was pointedly not looking at Ron, and waved their hands in a gesture that was very clearly meant to indicate, “ _ what the fuck? _ ”.

Ron’s scowl only deepened.

Harry looked down at his hands.

To the right, Draco cleared his throat and raised his hand. He looked guilty. 

“Granger is in the hospital wing,” he said, “along with Goyle. There was an incident outside the dungeons.”

“An  _ incident _ ?” 

Ed, as a general rule, did not like that word. It was used too much in their line of work, mostly when the military really didn’t want to go into details. It was the same with Conflict. 

The  _ incident  _ with the Ishvalan child that led to the Ishvalan  _ Conflict _ . The  _ incident  _ in Liore. The  _ conflict  _ with Scar. The Nina Tucker  _ incident _ . 

They looked at their hands -- they were shaking. Tremoring, just slightly. The kids probably couldn’t tell, but it made their fingers curl into tight fists nonetheless.

God, fuck, Nina. 

She would have been.

She was four when Ed had met her. They’d been fifteen. 

_ She’d be _ \--

Had it really been that long?

_ She’d be _ \--

Ten years?

_ She’d be _ \--

Nina would have been fourteen, the same age as this particular group of students. The same age as the  _ child  _ who was about to have to go up against a  _ dragon _ .

They try to imagine Nina competing in the Triwizard Tournament and only succeed in making themself feel vaguely sick. 

“Class dismissed,” they managed to croak out, once they remembered how to make their vocal chords make noise, “Take a free period. Potter, Weasley, Blondie, you three stay behind. And I want everyone’s first attempt at an array to change water into ice on my desk Monday morning. Do  _ not  _ try to activate them.”

As the class filed out the door, throwing concerned looks over their shoulders at their visibly harried teacher as they passed. 

Ed waited until the door shut, and then a few seconds more to insure anyone who may have hung back to eavesdrop had moved on to something more interesting, before they fixed the three students in front of them with their iciest look.

“Explain,” they demanded, “ _ now _ .”

Draco winced; Harry flinched; Ron started talking.

“Bloody Malfoy started it!” He said, face flushing with anger, “He called Hermione a--”

“You said to keep up appearances!” Draco pointed at Ed, eyebrows drawn in defensively, “I was going to apologize to her later! But Weasley pulled out his wand, and Harry had to do the same because it would look too weird if he didn’t. So  _ I  _ had to draw mine--”

“You did not!” 

“I never would have turned down a chance to hex Potter’s stupid face last year,” Draco argued, “I wasn’t trying to hit anyone I was aiming for the wall!”

“I had the same idea,” Harry said softly, finally meeting Ed’s eye, “they hit each other instead. Goyle and Hermione each got a facefull. Goyle got boils and Hermione’s front teeth started growing.”

“Snape said he didn’t see a difference,” growled Ron, “that wanker. Her teeth were past her chin! And he took fifty points from Gryffindor and gave Harry and I detention! The  _ Slytherins _ ” he spat the word like it tasted foul, “got off scot free!”

Ed pinched the bridge of their nose, “So it was an accident?” they asked, glad that Roy wasn’t around to catch them adopting his mannerisms after a lifetime of relentless mocking.

“Yes,” said Draco.

“No!” said Ron.

Inwardly, Ed considered the ethics -- or lackthereof-- involved in locking the two of them in a closet without their wands and letting them punch each other until they figured their shit out. 

Outwardly, they sighed, “Fifty points  _ to  _ red, for, fuck I don’t know. Telling me the truth? And Draco, why don’t you and Goyle sit for a detention with me on Sunday instead of going to Hogsmede? That sound equivalent to everyone?” 

Stony silence.

Then Draco slowly shrugged, “I can live with that,” he said, “you better make it terrible though. I can guarantee Snape is going to have these two doing something vile.”

“I’ll get creative,” Ed assured, “if I can’t find a mess for you to clean up I’ll make one myself.”

They could use the excuse to blow something up, honestly. 

Very slowly, Ron nodded, “It doesn’t make up for what you said to Hermione.”

“I know,” Draco nodded, because miraculously he  _ did  _ know and distantly Ed registered the warm rush of pride in their chest underneath the ever growing sense of dread, “I already told you I was going to apologize. She likes sugar quills, right?”

Ron’s nod this time was even slower, he opened his mouth--

Ed’s door burst open. They dropped into a crouch hands poised to clap and send their attacker flying.

The flaw in their plan was that it wasn’t an attacker -- it was Regular Sized Creevey, who looked about as surprised to see Ed as Ed was to see him.

“Uh…” he squeaked, cheeks reddening, “sorry Professor Elric,” and they never could get either Creevey sibling to stop calling them that it was  _ terrible _ , “I. Mr. Bagman needs to see Harry. They’re interviewing the champions for the Daily Prophet.”

Ed slowly straightened, catching the absolutely horrified look on Harry’s face, “Did they get permission from one of Harry’s guardians?” They asked.

“I…” Colin didn’t seem to know the answer.

“There is no way the Dursleys would ever respond to any wizarding mail,” Harry said after a moment, “they sent me a pair of old socks for Christmas my first year but that was more out of spite than anything.”

“What about--” 

Harry cut Ed off with a shake of his head, “Not on anything Ministry related.” Right, because Sirius Black was a felon. Innocent. But a felon nonetheless.

“Gotcha,” Ed turned to Colin, apologetic smile firmly in place, “sorry, Mr. Creevey. Harry is underage. Bagman needs to have guardian approval for Harry to participate in the interview.” That was a straight up lie, but they doubted Colin would know that.

Predictably, the poor kid looked lost, “I… Professor Dumbledore said…”

_ There it was _ , “Oh, if  _ Dumbledore  _ says,” Ed rolled their eyes towards the ceiling, “well, let’s go then, Harry.” They nodded to Ron and Draco, hoping that they properly conveyed exactly how much hell was about to break loose so they would make themselves scarce, “We’ll see you two at dinner.” They clamped their hand on Harry’s shoulder, squeezing tightly, “Lead the way, Creevey.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> will i write smut 
> 
> eh maybe one day but unless u count skyline i haven't done that shit since my ff . net days so lets fuckin' not rn
> 
> also yes i am calling the creevey's after the rudy's from bobs burgers fuckin fight me ill wear my louise blanket cape A N D fuzzy socks


	14. it's a lot of light to try to bear on your own

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oh shit waddup

When Ed stepped into the random, empty classroom they’d claimed for the champions to do their thing they saw Bagman mouth an absolutely _foul_ word and knew without a shadow of a doubt that they made the correct decision not letting Harry into this particular den of wolves alone.

The classroom in question was tiny, maybe half the size of Ed’s own. All but three desks, in front of the blackboard with a gaudy velvet cloth thrown over them, were conspicuously missing

Before they’d entered and apparently become the _bane_ of his very existence, Bagman had been talking to a blonde woman in some terrible green suit and matching hat -- her lipstick was so vividly, atrociously pink that Ed knew immediately she was going to be Terrible To Deal With.

“Out of the frying pan,” Harry whispered under his breath and Ed had to try very hard to keep their expression fierce and intimidating. 

They rarely had to play the part of Fullmetal to the extent they had to before the Promised Day; once you punch God in the face and come back from the dead (twice) your reputation as a badass that Should Not Be Fucked With was pretty much cemented. 

Just the sight of them these days was enough to make any rogue alchemist piss themselves in fear, no matter what their face looked like.

But this wasn’t Amestris.

"Ah, here he is! Champion number four! In you come, Harry, in you come...nothing to worry about, it's just the wand weighing ceremony, the rest of the judges will be here in a moment -"

"Wand weighing?" Ed cut in, raising one eyebrow slowly. 

Bagman started to sweat. Even Viktor took a moment to stop being tall, dark, and broody in the corner to peek at them. 

"We have to check that your wands are fully functional, no problems, you know, as they're your most important tools in the tasks ahead," Bagman said, wringing his hands, "The expert's upstairs now with Dumbledore. And then there's going to be a little photo shoot. This is Rita Skeeter," he added, gesturing toward Terrible To Deal With. "She's doing a small piece on the tournament for the Daily Prophet.”

Beside them, Harry stiffened. 

“About that,” Ed settled on hand on Harry’s incredibly tense shoulder, “as I was telling Mr. Creevey here, in Amestris it is illegal to interview a minor without consent from a parent or guardian.” 

The sweating intensified.

Truth, Ed was such a good liar. 

(Someone remind them to have Roy pass a very quick law.)

“It won’t be a problem for the other champions, they are all over the age of consent. But Harry here... I assume you’ve gotten a signed permission form from his aunt and uncle?” 

Karkaroff, settled in the corner with Viktor, curled his face into a carefully controlled sneer, “You may not have noticed, Elric, but we’re not in Amestris right now.”

Ed tilted their head and straightened their skirt pointedly -- it seemed to be a point of contention with the Bulgarian headmaster -- “No, but I mean… President Mustang _is_ a judge, it would seem awfully rude to completely ignore his countries laws, wouldn’t it Mr. Crouch?” 

“He is also your husband!” Karkaroff snapped back before Crouch could get a word out, “He will back up everything you say! As you would for him!”

A decade ago, Ed would have clapped their hands and shoved that man’s head so far up his own ass that his ugly goatee would give him heartburn, “If you think that’s how my marriage works I can see why you’re _not_ married,” Adult Ed, however, had years of hiding their desire to _murder_ someone in cold blood under cool, insincere smiles and word games.

“I’m assuming by your reaction that you didn’t think to get permission for Harry to be interviewed?” Ed raised both eyebrows, “According to Amestrenian law, there will need to be another adult in the room with him for the interview,” because there was no way Dumbledor, in all of his infinite ability to ruin Ed’s day, would agree to _cancel_ the interview altogether. 

Crouch, finally breaking his silence, simply sighed, “I’m assuming you’re volunteering to be the adult in the room, Professor Elric?”

Smiling blandly, Ed reached up to curl a lock of hair around two gloved fingers, “It’s completely up to Harry who accompanies him. The whole point is to make sure no one takes advantage of the kid.”

“You,” Harry said quickly, “or Roy, or Riza. Someone from your team. I don’t care who.”

“I don’t have anything going on right now,” Ed agreed easily, “where would you like to do this, Miss. Skeeter?”

Terrible To Deal With looked like she sucked on a lemon.

Good.

She also decided that the perfect spot for her to interview Harry was in a _broom closet._ Which was all kinds of weird and it had _better_ not have been premeditated because there were several red flags for a grown woman to bring a famous, objectively adorable fourteen year old into a _closet_.

"You won't mind, Harry, if I use a Quick-Quotes Quill? It leaves me free to talk to you normally..."

"A what?" asked Harry and Ed in complete unison right down to the heavy, _heavy_ suspicion.

It was reassuring to know that Harry didn’t trust the woman as far as he could throw her either; good judge of character. 

Rita Skeeter's smile widened -- she had several gold teeth that clashed terribly with her already awful lipstick.

She reached again into her bag --Ed’s shoulders tensed, hands poised to clap if she tried anything funny; her tiny purse didn’t look big enough to hold a _gun_ but fuckin’ witches, man -- and drew out a quill that matched her suit and a roll of parchment.

Ed watched with narrowed eyes as she licked the tip of the quill, then placed it upright on the parchment, where it stood balanced on its point, apparently ready to go on its own. They may have trusted that quill even less than they trusted the woman herself.

“Have none of you people ever heard of a pen?” They asked into the void -- Skeeter ignored them, but it made Harry snicker softly. 

"Testing...my name is Rita Skeeter, Daily Prophet reporter.”

Confirming Ed’s suspicions, the quill began to write unaided by any human hand.

_Attractive blonde Rita Skeeter, forty-three, who's savage quill has punctured many inflated reputations -_

Ed didn’t even try to hide their snort, “That is _not_ what you said.”

"Lovely," said Rita Skeeter, yet again ignoring Ed’s very existence, as she ripped the top piece of parchment off and stuffed it in that inconceivably small purse, "So, Harry...what made you decide to enter the Triwizard Tournament?"

Off to a great start.

"I didn't--" Harry started, before he got distracted by the quill scribbling again, _far_ more letters than required for the few syllables he’d uttered.

Ed read aloud; “An ugly scar, souvenir of a tragic past, disfigures the otherwise charming face of Harry Potter, whose eyes-- wow this is garbage. Are you sure you’re from the _Daily Prophet_ ? Because not even my hometown would print something like this and I am a _hick_.”

The sound of Skeeter grinding her teeth was audible in the crowded space and Ed should have probably felt a little bad for her, maybe, if they were a good person. “Harry," she said firmly, waiting until Harry looked back at her to continue, "why did you decide to enter the tournament, Harry?"

"I didn't," Harry finally got to state without being interrupted, "I don't know how my name got into the Goblet of Fire. I didn't put it in there.”

Rita Skeeter’s eyebrow game was good, but it had nothing on Ed’s -- they mimicked her single brow raise with no small amount of contempt.

"Come now, Harry, there's no need to be scared of getting into trouble. We all know you shouldn't really have entered at all. But don't worry about that. Our readers hove a rebel."

Ew.

"But I didn't enter," Harry repeated. "I don't know who -"

"How do you feel about the tasks ahead? Excited? Nervous?"

“How about you let the kid answer a question?” Ed asked, settling with their back against the wall and their arms crossed over their chest, “Or do you only do that when they give an answer to fit your bullshit narrative?”

Harry shot them an appreciative look, along with a healthy dose of _help me_ eyes, "I haven't really thought...yeah, nervous, I suppose," said Harry.

"Champions have died in the past, haven't they? Have you thought about that at all?"

"Well...they say it's going to be a lot safer this year," said Harry, shuffling uneasily, “and I mean, we have Professor Elric and President Mustang giving us alchemy lessons--”

“Just you?” She asked, and she looked far too excited about the prospect for it to just be casual alchemical curiosity.

“No,” Harry shook his head, “they’re helping Cedric as well. And they offered Fleur and Viktor, but I don’t think they’ve accepted.”

“Their headmasters think I’m trying to sabotage them,” Ed rolled their eyes, “clearly, I must have an ulterior motive besides _not wanting children to die_.”

The quill was having a _field day_ over there. Ed wanted to burn it.

"Of course, you've looked death in the face before, haven't you? How would you say that's affected you?"

"Er," more _help me_ eyes.

_Fuckin’ trying here, kid._

"Do you think that the trauma in your past might have made you keen to prove yourself? To live up to your name? Do you think that perhaps you were tempted to enter the Triwizard Tournament because -"

"I didn't enter," Harry snapped, clenching his hands into fists on his thighs, “I’ve told you _several_ times.”

"Can you remember your parents at all?" Skeeter interrupted and _wow_ , okay, Ed was going to punch her. They hoped Roy thought to bring bail money to Britain because Ed was _going to get arrested for assault--_

"No," said Harry, before Ed could grab him by the wrist and bodily drag him from the closet.

"How do you think they'd feel if they knew you were competing in the Triwizard Tournament? Proud? Worried? Angry?"

_Scritch._

_Scritch._

_Scritch_. 

Ed reached over and snatched the parchment out of the air, eyes scanning the words quickly until they reached the end. They snorted and peeked up at Skeeter with a sneer, “Tears fill those startlingly green eyes as our conversation turns to the parents he can barely remember,” they said, throwing their voice dramatically and grabbing at their chest with their free hand.

"I have _not_ got tears in my eyes!" Harry hissed, his shoulders hunched in like an angry kitten.

Ed nudged Harry’s shoulder with their hip, “Up, we’re out of here.” The parchment made a delightfully satisfying noise as they ripped it in half. Almost as satisfying as the crackle of alchemy as they deconstructed it down to its base components and let it flutter to the ground, barely more than ash.

“Thank you for your time, Miss. Skeeter,” Ed said, overly formal, “but I believe that we’ve decided to rescind our offer for an exclusive interview. Perhaps we’ll give Mr. Lovegood at the _Quibbler_ a call.”

They slammed the door open, ushering Harry through first, ignoring Skeeter’s sputtering. After a moment of consideration they shut it behind them and alchemized the jam of the door into the wall.

Harry looked alarmed.

“She’ll figure a way out,” Ed shrugged, “weird how these castle doors just seal like that, isn’t it? We should really talk to Dumbledore about that one.” 

A tired, wane smile found its way onto Harry’s face, the first Ed had seen that afternoon, as he nodded, “Thank you, Ed. I mean it. I-- I couldn't have done that alone.”

“The woman is a harpie,” Ed agreed, throwing an arm around the kid’s shoulders and pulling him into the warmest hug Hogwarts had ever seen. Harry stilled for a moment, not even breathing, before he melted into the embrace, clutching at the back of Ed’s coat like a lifeline.

Forlornly, Ed wondered how long it had been since someone had _hugged_ the damn kid. 

“Come on,” they said, pulling back but keeping their arm firmly over his shoulders, “we’ve got wands to weigh, people to bother, Bagman’s to taunt.”

“Does Mr. Bagman not count as ‘people’?” 

“Abso _lutely_ not, Harry. Keep up. Oh, if the judges are there maybe we can annoy Roy while we’re at it. God, I love annoying Roy.”

“You’re weird,” Harry stated, though he didn’t sound particularly put out about it.

“ _You’re_ weird,” Ed shot back, pushing open the classroom door, grinning innocently at the assembled judges and their husband, “Sorry about the wait.”

“Where is Miss. Skeeter?” Dumbledore asked, peeking over his glasses like he knew exactly what Ed had done and was content to let it _stay_ done.

Ed shrugged, “I dunno. She ran off holding her stomach halfway through the interview. Said something about explosive diarrhea?” 

Cedric choked to hide his laughter -- even Fleur looked like she was pressing her lips together especially hard. Roy looked up at the ceiling like it had ever had any answers for him (it didn’t and he should have given up hope by now.)

Dumbledore hummed quietly, “Just as well, she called me an ‘obsolete dingbat’ the last time she mentioned me in a piece. Said my ideas were _old fashioned_ . _”_

“An obsolete dingbat?” Ed asked, affronted, “Well that’s just un-creative. It’s an insult to insults.”

“Thank you, Professor Elric.” Well, it wasn’t supposed to be a ringing endorsement for _him_ but honestly Ed just wanted to get the weighing over with so they could make Harry the biggest mug of cocoa the world had ever seen and argue the pros and cons of spiking it with just a _little_ bit of firewhiskey with Riza. So. Fuckin’ fine, they’d let the dingbat have it. “Have you met Garrik Ollivander?” He gestured to an older man with an absolutely wild mane of white hair, “He is the foremost wandmaker in all of England.”

Ed narrowed their eyes at the man before shooting Roy a questioning glance -- their husband nodded once, lips quirked in a tiny smile. Okay, cool. Roy approved. Ed held out their flesh hand, “Edward Elric,” they said, “You can call me Ed. I dig the hair; it makes you look like a mad scientist.”

Ollivander blinked bemusedly at Ed’s offered hand for a moment before taking it gingerly, “Thank you,” he said, “I think. You must be Mr. Mustang’s spouse.”

“How could you tell?”

“He described you as ‘a scowling sunburst in a pencil skirt’.” 

“Of _course_ he did,” Ed mumbled as Harry snickered beside them, “shut up, peanut gallery. Don’t you have a wand to go weigh?” They reached up to ruffle Harry’s shaggy hair, getting an elbow to the ribs for all of their trouble as the kid wriggled away.

“Yeah, yeah,” he said, slapping Ed’s hand, “it’s nice to see you again, Mr. Ollivander.” 

The weighing itself, compared to the rest of the afternoon, was actually pretty damn boring. For all it was touted as a _ceremony_ it was literally just Ollivander rattling off the composition of each champions’ wand and then waving it to make sure it did what it was supposed to. 

Then it was over with mild trauma -- though Harry looked about ready to turn tail and run when it was his turn for some reason Ed didn’t get. 

Of course, then they (Bagman) demanded _photos,_ both group shots and individuals. 

Neither Harry nor Cedric had any desire to actually go into the Great Hall for dinner, so Ed did what any responsible adult would do -- they very politely asked the house elves in the kitchen to send a veritable feast up to their office. 

Someone had let Skeeter out of the closet at some point; Ed saw her when they peeked into the hall for just a moment to see if Hermione had made it out of the hospital wing. 

She hadn’t, but Skeeter looked _pissed_ and Ed couldn't help but preen quietly at the pure fury on her face.

“I’m gonna go check on Hermione,” they sighed, basically shoving Cedric and Harry into Roy by the shoulders, “make sure these two eat before they fall asleep on our sofa, please.”

“Of course, dear,” Roy reeled them in, settling warm hands on their hips and pressing a kiss first to their lips, then their forehead, “give her my love?”

‘Of course, dear,” Ed parroted, leaning up on their toes to steal another kiss.

“You guys are gross,” Harry said bluntly, “and I’m hungry.”

Roy blinked slowly, staring over Ed’s shoulder at precisely nothing, “So glad we decided not to have children and then you went and adopted a whole castle full of the _worst_ little gremlins--”

“Oi!” 

“They’re your gremlins too,” Ed argued, “and they’re hungry. I didn’t see Draco in the hall, chances are he’s already in the office. Because I’m running a goddamn bed and breakfast.”

Roy was still laughing as he led the indignant children towards the stairs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> literally 2020's body count is up to two brothers fucking TWO (2) brothers jesus christ can this year pick on someone else im running out of family


	15. your talk is full of flames but you walk on water

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> if you havent watched the unas annus aerial silk video you should esp bc itll only be up for like another month or so and its really fun and made me really wanna get dicked down on one of those things
> 
> im living vicariously through ed

Ron was, unsurprisingly, perched in an uncomfortable chair next to Hermione’s bed in the hospital wing; she looked annoyed as all hell to be there but Ron seemed to be soothing the itch to simply walk out against medical direction -- it was an expression Ed was  _ all  _ too familiar with, having seen it reflected in Al’s armor more than a few times beyond  _ too many  _ during their… unique adolescence. 

They paused in the doorway at the sight of red hair; Ron hadn’t been particularly forthcoming with Ed recently, since they’d apparently chosen Harry in the divorce. Or whatever teenagers with a fairly normal upbringing all things considered had to be mad about.

Hermione, sharp as a tack and twice as scary, noticed them immediately and her face brightened, “Hello, Professor!” Ed had long since stopped yelling at her for addressing them by their title; she looked like someone kicked her puppy whenever they tried and they decided it just wasn’t worth it.

Biting the bullet, Ed took the few steps needed to reach her bedside and clap her gently on the shoulder, “Glad to see you’re feeling better. I almost had a heart attack when you missed class.”

Her face pinched in embarrassment as she looked away, dark curls bouncing about her face, “I’m sorry,” she mumbled, “I hope I didn’t miss anything too important.”

Before Ed could respond, Ron snorted, “You kidding? They canceled class to give Harry, Malfoy, and I the third degree.” Oh, so he was  _ Harry  _ now, and not just Potter. Good sign. “Probably woulda’ marched right down here had Creevey not interrupted.” He looked at Ed out of the corner of his eye, “Did uh… the interview go well?”

“Terribly,” Ed answered honestly, “ask Harry about it when you apologize to him.” They turned back to the dark skinned girl in the bed, “As for you, he’s right. You didn’t miss a thing; I was worried as hell. I know you wouldn’t miss class for anything, my first thought was that you’d been kidnapped.” Or worse. But these kids didn’t need to know about Nina.

Truth, it was hard being a single mom.

Especially when you were a twenty five year old, married, gender fluid individual with  _ no children _ .

Letting out a short laugh, Hermione beamed back at Ed; her teeth were back to normal -- actually, wait a fuckin’ second, “Severus Snape is a  _ dead man _ .”

Both children blinked up at them and Ed was having none of it, nope, no thank you, “That greasy bastard -- your teeth!” They threw one hand out to gesture, too mad to properly form words, “Ron told me what he said to you and now your teeth are different!” And they were -- they were straighter, and her front teeth were shorter. 

Hermione seemed to shrink in on herself, “Is it that noticeable?” She asked, voice small.

Ron appeared confused. He hadn’t noticed anything different. “You had Madam Pomfrey change your teeth? Why?”

She wouldn’t look at either of them; “I… I’ve always been the girl with the bushy hair and the buck teeth,” she shrugged, “I had the chance to change one of those things and I took it. Do they look bad?”

“Of course they don’t look bad,” Ed assured her quickly, “and I’m not angry at you for exercising your right to bodily autonomy. What I  _ am  _ angry about is that big fuckin’ bully making a fourteen year old girl feel like there was something so wrong with her features that she needed  _ magical intervention _ .” 

There were seething; an egg could have been fried on their head. That man was supposed to be a  _ teacher _ ! A teacher! 

“You are  _ beautiful _ , Hermione Granger,” they said, dead serious, waiting for her to look at them before they continued, “you always have been. Fluffy hair and all. And more than that, you’re kind, and you’re funny, and you’re delightful to be around. You are the brightest witch of your age inside  _ and  _ out.” They reached out, smoothing one hand over the fluffy hair in question, “So don’t let that asshole get to you.” 

Hermione was crying and Ed was going to shove a fullmetal foot up Severus Snape’s greasy ass. 

They turned to Ron, pointing severely, “Keep an eye on her. I have to go check on the other troublemakers. I left them with Roy and fuck knows he has no willpower against you lot. They’re gonna end up eating treacle tarts for dinner.” 

Ron threw up the sloppiest salute Ed had ever seen, but his eyes were set with his usual brand of pig-headed determination so they decided to let it slide, “On it.” He blinked twice, then shoved a hand into his pocket, retrieving a slightly crumpled envelope“Oh, give this to Harry would you? Hedwig delivered it to me when she couldn’t find him. It’s from. Er.  _ Snuffles _ .”

So, Sirius Black. Harry’s fugitive godfather who’d been framed and imprisoned for more than a decade. 

“Gotcha,” Ed said, taking the letter, “he probably told him about the dragons. Hey, speaking of, what do you guys do for physical activity around here?”

Both teenagers blinked slowly, uncomprehending.

_ Oh, for the love of fuck _ .

“Cool,” Ed sighed. 

* * *

It went a little like this; Ed barged into Dumbledor’s office, spitting fire, and demanded a physical education curriculum. Because how the fuck were Harry and Cedric supposed to survive the tournament if they couldn’t run without breaking their ankles? 

Dumbledor said Ed could create a  _ club _ , but that he wouldn’t make it mandatory to attend, it would have to be completely voluntary.

That. Was a challenge if Ed had ever heard one.

And a challenge with a  _ loophole _ at that. One they didn’t even need Roy to point out as they met Minerva’s eye at lunch that afternoon and grinned a slow, toothy grin that promised nothing less than the complete destruction of everything their adversary held dear and would have made their military minions shudder in terror.

Dumbledor wouldn’t make it mandatory -- he didn’t say the heads of houses couldn’t. 

Minerva, Filius, and Pomona agreed readily. They didn’t even bother asking Snape, instead spreading the word to Flint, Zambini, and Nott (and Draco, naturally) who were going to  _ strongly encourage  _ the rest of Slytherin to attend.

Roy stood next to Ed on Thursday evening as the first batch of students reluctantly made their way onto the grounds. It was a mixed batch, where years and houses were concerned, as it had to fit in with the student’s existing schedule, but it was a good turnout. 

“You’ve never attended a physical training session in your life, Edward,” Roy mumbled, amused, arms crossed over his faded academy t-shirt, “and now you’re leading one?”

Ed rolled their eyes and tightened their ponytail, “I never needed military physical training,” they answered, “since I can wipe the floor with all of you one handed. These kids get  _ nothing.  _ Their only sport is played on a broomstick. And besides,” they paused to grin up at their husband, “P.T. is boring, I’m gonna make it fun.”

Leaning down to press a soft kiss to Ed’s upturned mouth, Roy resigned himself to the impending headache, “Love, whenever you say something is going to be ‘fun’ I end up with a stack of paperwork the size of a small child and an angry phone call from the mayor of a town that just sustained a massive amount of property damage.”

“Shut up,” they laughed, shoving at Roy’s shoulder, their grin never faltering -- there was a time, once, where Ed would have bristled. Would have crossed their arms and yelled at Roy to stop sending them on assignments if he didn’t like how they got things done. But that was long ago.

As it were, they stood backlit by the slowly setting sun,  _ glowing  _ from their golden hair to their glittering grin, peering up at Roy with mirth in their eyes and the easy, relaxed posture of a person who was comfortable in their own skin. In their own life.

God, but Roy loved them.

“Besides,” they said, blissfully unaware of their husband writing sonnets about them in his mind, “this isn’t  _ my  _ idea. I took a class with Winry, the last time I was in Rush Valley.”

There was no time to be horrified by those implications before Ed had dropped into a crouch and clapped -- the resulting reaction was so bright Roy had to cover his eyes and by the time he could see past the milky green dots, Ed had erected a field of tall, pyramid shaped structures comprised of four poles.

Hanging from the center of each was a long, silk loop.

“Welcome to exercise,” Ed called to the assembled students, bouncing excitedly on the balls of their bare, mismatched feet, “get in groups of three and pick a station. Diggory and Potter up here, you’re gonna be with Roy. You lot like to fly so much that I’m gonna teach you to do it the muggle way.”

Roy reached up and tugged experimentally on the cloth above him, “Love? What have I let you talk me into this time?”

“Glad you asked!” Ed clapped, this time for emphasis, “The lady who taught Win and I called them  _ aerial silks _ . I call it ‘How To Learn To Do A Split In An Hour Or Less’.”

“You can already do a split,” Roy narrowed his eyes suspiciously, proven correct in his assumption that he was going to be experiencing a lot of regret very soon when Ed’s grin only widened.

“Yeah,” they said, “but you can’t.”

The first step was to stretch. A  _ lot _ . Roy hadn’t realized there were so many ways to contort his body that he hadn’t already tried in a much less family-friendly capacity (and he was definitely going to utilize the knowledge  _ in  _ said capacity), but Ed lead them through a series of increasingly complicated positions that left all of his muscles pleasantly loose and slightly sore.

It also had the lovely side effect of a practically gift wrapped excuse to blatantly stare at his spouse’s absolutely incomparable ass and thighs in what had to be the tightest pair of black leggings known to humankind. 

A dangerous endeavor, outside in broad slightly-after-daylight, in front of a gaggle of students. Thankfully, Roy had opted for slightly  _ looser  _ pants.

“Good,” Ed said, rising from their split like it was the easiest thing in the world -- more than one of the children looked about ready to hex them for the sheer  _ audacity--  _ “now we’re gonna move to stretching  _ on  _ the silk.”

Several groans. 

“More stretching?” Harry asked, pink cheeked and slightly out of breath.

“Unless you wanna go pay Poppy a visit, yeah,” Ed shrugged, unconcerned, “this is fun though. You get to hang and flip upside down.”

First, though, they had to do some pull-ups and crunches while hanging onto a swinging piece of cloth for dear life.

“Ok,” Ed said, reaching up above their head and grabbing onto the silk to demonstrate the ‘upside down’ portion of the stretches, “some of you are gonna have an easier time here because you’re freakin’ giraffes, but what you’re gonna do is reach up like this and kind of shrug it on like a backpack. Then haul yourself up and flip back -- make sure to keep your knees wide and on this side of the fabric or you’re gonna eat dirt.”

Hanging upside down, as promised, ponytail just brushing the ground below, and legs spread in a wide split keeping them suspended, Ed grinned, “See? Easy. And fun. Now you.”

It took a decent amount of time and a lot of Ed wandering through the ranks and correcting posture and technique, but there were no injuries and that was really all they could have hoped for. 

“Point your  _ toes,  _ Cedric,” they said for the eighth time.

“What does that even do?” 

“Fuck if I know, the teacher said to do it. So do it.” 

They stuck to simple positions that were just glorified stretches rather than actual  _ poses _ , but no one seemed to be having a bad time, as unfamiliar as they were.

As the class ended and the students, sweaty and flushed and thoroughly disgruntled, started to head back to the castle Roy, who had fared only slightly better than the children, and only because of extensive military training and several years of being married to Ed, caught his spouse around the waist and reeled them in.

“What do you want, bastard?” Ed asked, waving to Harry and Cedric as they headed off towards their respective common rooms, even as they leaned back into Roy’s chest with a contented hum.

“To know why you haven’t hung one of these in our bedroom,” Roy answered, hiding a grin in the damp skin of Ed’s neck when the blonde shuddered, “I could write a book on all of the things I’d like to do to you while you’re hanging there.”

Flushing brilliantly, finally as flustered as everyone else had been for the past hour, Ed dug their flesh elbow into Roy’s ribs, “Pervert,” they mumbled, settling a hand against the nearest pole and transmuting the grounds back to rights, “I can’t take you anywhere.”

“Especially not in those leggings,” he agreed easily, ”I had no idea how good you would look wrapped in red silk and suspended in midair. Stretched out and helpless,” except Ed was never  _ actually  _ helpless; even when they didn’t have alchemy they had a stash of wickedly sharp knives on them at all times, “your  _ delectable _ ass nearly caused an international incident.”

“My delectable ass is sweaty and gross and not letting you anywhere near it until we’re both showered,” they paused, tilting their head back to press a light kiss to the curve of their husband’s jaw, “ _ after  _ though… I think that if we take down that Truth-awful Christmas tree we could shift the dresser into the corner and…”

Muffling his groan in Ed’s neck, Roy was very,  _ very  _ glad to have worn such loose pants. And to have married the most  _ wonderful _ , beautiful, brilliant person in all of Amestris.

And, all things considered, he’d also never been happier to light a tree on fire.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> is this my best chapter? no
> 
> did i have a bad week and am lucky to have written anything? ye
> 
> blah blah my tumblr is pansexualorgana come say hi [here](https://pansexualorgana.tumblr.com/)


	16. Rolling over hills and the roundabouts

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> three energy drinks 4100 words 230 am 
> 
> fuckyeahbaby

Ed was going to have a stroke. They’d already bitten all of the nails off of their left hand and were trying to calculate the exact probability of Minnie hexing them if they tried to nibble on hers -- given the expression on her face, it was fifty-fifty she wouldn’t even notice. 

“I hate this,” Ed hissed; they hadn’t even touched their lunch, had barely even been able to stomach breakfast -- even the bacon had smelled distinctly unappetizing. 

Fifteen minutes until they had to lead Harry and Cedric down to the dragons’ enclosure. Ed pushed their plate away and turned their head until they could hide their face in Roy’s shoulder. They’d prefer to be at the Red table; Harry was disassociating hard and Ron still hadn’t managed to scrounge up the courage to apologize to him. Poor Hermione was stuck in the middle, pouring over a book that had to weigh as much as she did. Every so often she’d nudge Harry and point to a passage and he’d pretend to read it, absorbing absolutely nothing.

Roy’s hand came up, fingers carding gently through their ponytail, “They’re going to be fine, Dear Heart,” he whispered into the crown of Ed’s head, “You’ve taught them so well. You’ve done everything you possibly could have.”

Including sneaking out to the arena and carefully hiding transmutation circles in invisible ink in locations pre disclosed to both Hogwarts’ Champions. They did a variety of things, from encasing the person who activated it in stone -- thus protecting them from getting burnt by flames -- to erecting a large cage around the dragon, giving them the opportunity to grab the fake egg and run. 

It was absolutely cheating, Ed supposed, but in all fairness had Karkaroff and Maxime allowed Fleur and Krum to accept Ed and Roy’s help, they would also be in the loop. As it was, Ed was just trying to keep their damn kids alive through the first damn task so they could move onto bigger, far more pressing problems.

_ “Sirius thinks Karkaroff is trying to kill me,” Harry said, bright and early Sunday morning. T-minus 24 hours until the first task.  _

_ Ed settled their mug two inches to the right of the coaster, just to watch Roy twitch, and leveled the fourteen year old in front of them with their best 100% serious; I am not fucking with you look, “That is an avenue we’re looking into, yes,” they said, “Draco told us he was a Voldemort supporter.” _

_ Dropping into the overstuffed chair in front of Ed’s desk like his strings had been cut, Harry sighed, “Thank you for not lying to me.” _

_ “Why the hell would I lie to you?” Ed reached for their coffee again, now that the opportunity for dramatics had passed, “That accomplishes nothing. In fact, since it would probably cause you not to trust me anymore it would accomplish negative things.” Their eyes rolled, “Who tried that shit on you?” _

_ “Only every adult in my life,” Harry mumbled into Ed’s enchanted ceiling, “Your sky never changes,” he said idly, “is it somewhere important to you?” _

_ Ed knew avoidance techniques when they saw them; hell, they’d invented some whole new ones, “Resembool,” they said leaning back in their own chair to watch the clouds roll by lazily, “the town where I grew up. We’re the chief supplier of wool in all of Amestris.” _

_ “Wool?”  _

_ “Mmhm; we have a whole festival surrounding sheep every spring. It’s kind of awesome,” they admitted before laughing softly, “I told you I was considered a country hick by Amestrian standards.” _

_ “Yeah, no kidding,” Harry mumbled, but he sighed, “that sounds pretty great. Farms and sheep with no war brewing on the horizon.” _

_ “Not in a decade or so,” Ed agreed, “there was an incident during the Ishvalan conflict but we’ve mostly rebuilt since then. And Roy isn’t about to go and get us into any more bullshit, so…” _

_ “Not that my inference has ever stopped you from getting into bullshit,” Roy grumbled -- Ed ignored him, he was just grumpy because he’d drawn the short straw and had to grade the fifth year’s essays.  _

_ “Good thing I’m not the one running the country,” Ed shot back. _

_ “No, you’re the one in charge of several dozen magical teenagers,” a pause, “also you and I both know that Riza runs the country.” _

_ The admission surprised a laugh out of Harry as he sunk down lower in his chair, much the way Ed had when they were a teenager and their joints and vertebrae didn’t actively hate them and plot the snappy, crackly, and poppy demise, “Then why is she here?” _

_ Ed shared a look with Roy over the top of Harry’s head before Ed sighed and smiled wryly at him, “She’s tailing Karkaroff right now, actually. Havoc has made friends with Krum. Breda and Fleur get along surprisingly well,” they’d bonded over their love of strange food with weird names, “And Hagrid, bless his well meaning heart, is so taken with Maxime that he’s been feeding us all the information we need without even knowing he’s doing it.”  _

_ Harry blinked, startlingly green eyes finally leaving the sunny sky above them, “Your whole team…?” _

_ “Is focused first and foremost on your safety,” Roy confirmed, “but don’t worry, Falman has assumed the role of Draco’s personal escort,” and they hadn’t even had to tell him, he just seemed to enjoy the kid’s company, “and Fuery has Ron and Hermione in his sight at all times. Ron has been taking the opportunity to pick his brain on Muggle technology?”  _

_ Harry flinched miserably at his friend’s name, “Yeah,” he said, “his dad is obsessed with muggles. Think’s they’re fascinating.” _

_ “We are pretty cool,” Ed grinned around the rim of their mug; it had long since been emptied but it made for such a good prop they decided to keep it handy, “But the point is, Riza is not currently running the country because she has eyes on Karkaroff and an order to shoot if he tries anything.” _

_ The appreciation was clear in Harry’s face, “Who  _ **_is_ ** _ running the country, then?” _

_ Though their answer was the same, the tone in which it was said was so radically different that Harry had to laugh. _

_ Ed, with a dreamy air of extreme admiration and possibly mild infatuation, and Roy with all of the disdain he could muster, both alchemists sighed; “Olivier Armstrong.” _

It had barely been a full day since that conversation but it tickled like ants under Ed’s skin; they’d never met Harry’s godfather, on the run from the law as he was, but fuck they  _ wanted _ to. Another competent adult who actively adored Harry? It was literally the answer to their prayers. 

If Ed ever came within transmuting distance of Peter Pettigrew they were going to shove a stone pillar  _ so far  _ up that little rat’s ass--

Minerva stood -- Ed stopped breathing.

“It’s time then?” Roy asked. 

“It’s time,” she replied gravely, “Ed,” her voice had gentled exponentially, and Ed had half a mind to be offended but since the other half was shit scared they decided (very graciously) not to comment, “you’re not supposed to come,” a long pause; Ed peeked one eye open and watched her lips curl into a smirk, “but when has a silly thing like a rule ever stopped you from doing anything?”

They were halfway across the grounds, Harry and Cedric in tow, when Ed commented idly, “I thought you were a lot stricter about the school rules, Min.”

“I accept that the rule was put in place for a reason,” Minerva started diplomatically, “but as it was a stupid ass reason, I’ve elected to ignore it. Besides, your husband will be there and I dare them to tell you that you can’t do something while he’s in the room.”

Roy had gone ahead while they collected the children, presumably to smile charmingly and schmooze just a little while being just the right amount of intimidating. 

“Professor,” Harry started, awed, but she shushed him with a look.

“Don’t even think about it, Potter.”

Cedric snickered into his hand.

But the closer they got to the forest, the slower they seemed to move, and the paler the boys’ faces became. 

Minerva paused at the edge of the forest and turned; her usual, severe expression replaced with something earnest and nervous as she settled one hand on each of the teenager’s shoulders, “Do not panic,” she said, "just keep a cool head. We've got wizards standing by to control the situation if it gets out of hand, not to mention Ed, President Mustang, and the rest of their team.” She waited for both boys’ to nod. “The main thing is just to do your best, and nobody will think any the worse of you.” She paused again, studying them intently, “Are you all right?" 

Harry barked out a laugh that had exactly no humor in it while Cedric seemed to be trying valiantly not to vomit.

“Absolutely not,” Harry said.

“I’m a little better than Harry,” Cedric admitted, “I did sign up for this after all. But that doesn’t mean I’m not--”

“Terrified beyond all reason?” Ed interrupted knowingly; Cedric nodded, “It’s okay to be afraid. It’s okay to be so goddamn scared that you think you’re gonna die; the important thing is that you keep moving forward. And yeah, sure, it’ll probably hurt. It’ll hurt like hell -- but there’s no such thing as a painless lesson. You cannot gain something without losing something.”

“Equivalent exchange,” Harry muttered. 

“The first law of alchemy,” sighed Cedric. 

“Don’t sound so down,” Ed scolded as Minerva straightened, “You’re missing my point. What happens if the thing you lose is your fear? What then?”

“We turn into reckless idiots like you?” Harry asked.

“Exactly!” Ed grinned, reaching out to ruffled his hair, “I punched God in the face and I was scared as fuck the whole time. You can outrun a dragon.”

“I hate your logic,” Cedric complained, “ _ Hate  _ it.”

Ed couldn’t make themself sound annoyed, “You sound like Roy.”

The enclosures were actually hidden from view, when they arrived. Blocked by a large tent that hadn’t been there the night before when Ed had taken a detour on their way from rigging the arena to say goodnight to their scaly friends. 

“That’s new,” they mumbled to Minerva, who elbowed them in the ribs to shush them.

“I can’t go any further,” she said, making Harry’s eyes widen in alarm, “though I suppose nothing on Earth or Heaven could stop Professor Elric from continuing into the tent with you.”

“Recall the ‘punching God’ anecdote.”

Minerva sighed, “Yes, so. As I was saying, Mr. Bagman will be filling you in on the task, though I suppose all of that information will be redundant to you lot.”

“To be fair, Maxime and Karkaroff also know, which means Krum and Fleur do as well.” 

“So much for a fair tournament,” she said.

“That’s why you have me,” Ed assured her, “go get us good seats. I’m gonna get these two settled.”

It was nice to know that Harry and Cedric weren’t the only ones with nerves. Fleur looked pale and disheveled; her ponytail was slightly off center and her eyes had dark bags underneath them (somehow she still looked  _ stunning  _ and it took Ed a moment to remember that she was part Veela). Krum just looked grumpy, but the way his hands were fidgeting and he couldn’t quite keep eye contact betrayed him.

It made Bagman look extra ridiculous in contrast in his striped robes; he was flushed in excitement, hair ruffled and eyes sparkling as he fumbled his way through introductions, casting concerned looks Ed’s way every other word.

Minerva had been correct, as usual, however, as he didn’t dare try to make Ed leave with Roy sitting contentedly at a long table near the front of the tent. It took them a second, but they managed to catch their husband’s eye and smile gratefully. Roy, the sap, smiled back especially gently. All soft and goopy with soft eyes and that one dimple on his right cheek that made Ed’s knees liquify.

It was the kind of look that made Ed feel like everything just might work out okay.

And then Bagman brought out his sack -- which under any other circumstances was a phrase that would make Ed positively cackle -- and had each champion pick a miniature dragon with a number around its’ neck. 

A miniature  _ live  _ dragon.

At least Krum and Fleur didn’t look even remotely surprised (vaguely ill, but not surprised) at the fact that the first task involved dragons -- it unfortunately meant that they’d been right and the other two schools were definitely cheating.

_ Fortunately _ , Ed had seen that shit coming and had a well earned reputation for out-bullshitting the bullshitters. 

Cedric was going first, up against Donut, the swedish short-snout. 

Up next was Fleur, with the welsh green Ed had named Absinth.

Third, Krum and Ed’s favorite dragon, the chinese fireball: Cinnamon.

And finally, as Harry reached into the bag gingerly, Ed remembered that process of elimination left him with--

“The Hungarian Horntail!” Announced Bagman, clearly thrilled.

Thistle. 

_ Fuck _ .

Harry turned panicked eyes to Ed, making them school their expression  _ very  _ quickly, because if Harry saw them panicking then  _ he  _ would start panicking and it would be a whole thing.

“Alright,” Ed whispered, so only Harry could hear them, as Bagman explained their objective, “it’s okay. You know what to do. You could activate these arrays in your sleep. And if all else fails,” they took a deep breath through their nose and let it out slowly, “ _ ugh _ , I cannot believe I’m saying this, but you fall back and take Moody’s advice. I’ve seen you fly; if anyone can outfly an actual dragon it’s you.”

“But you said Thistle is an asshole,” Harry hissed back, slightly,  _ validly _ hysterical. 

“Thistle  _ is  _ an asshole,” whispered Ed urgently; because Thistle was the only one who still tried to roast them when they came to visit, “I was hoping you’d get Cinnamon, she’s an angel,” and if Krum hurt one scale on her beautiful head Ed was going to kill him, “but Thistle has a blind spot on her left side because of that one giant horn by her eye -- she’ll try to stab you with it, but she won’t be able to see while she does it. Move out of the way and cage her.”

“Easy for you to say!”

“Excuse me,” Bagman’s voice cut into whatever Ed was going to say back, “may I speak to Harry for a moment. Er.. Please.”

The look Ed gave the portly man could have peeled paint; they were over-protective and under-caffeinated and low-key sleep deprived. The fact that Bagman had dared to approach them at  _ all  _ proved that he was incredibly brave or incurably stupid. 

Somehow Ed was betting on the latter.

“Why?” The demanded, crossing their arms over their chest -- they’d opted for the bright red coat and leather pants ensemble that probably should have been in a museum and hailed as a piece of history (or tossed out with the rest of the rubbish every Thursday) just to watch Karkaroff eye them warily for the entire day, and it had the added effect of making everyone  _ else  _ eye them warily as well.

Bagman held his hands up, “I just…” and it was probably the most earnest they’d ever seen the man, “I’m worried,” he lowered his voice, “I have some pointers for him, but I can’t give them here, Crouch or the other headmasters might hear me.”

Ed looked at Harry out of the corner of their eye; the teenager sighed and raked a hand through his unruly hair, “My day can’t get any worse,” he said dryly, “if I’m not back in five minutes send Hawkeye.”

“Sir, yes sir,” Ed agreed, clapping Harry on the shoulder and watching intently as Bagman led him from the tent. They didn’t know what pointers Bagman could give him that the combined efforts of Ed, Roy, and Charlie  _ couldn’t  _ but the man  _ had  _ helped arrange the whole thing.

Turning to Cedric, who was looking very green in contrast to his bright yellow robes, Ed winced sympathetically, “So, first one to go, huh?”

Cedric could only grunt in response; Ed figured he was trying not to throw up and decided not to push it. “Did I ever tell you about the State Alchemist Exam?” They asked, because who knew how long until they were ready for the task to start and the longer they could keep him distracted the better -- actually, “Hey, you two,” they turned their head to call to the other two champions, “you wanna hear a story?”

Fleur and Krum shared a look before Fleur shrugged one shoulder delicately and made her way over, the hulking Hungarian following closely behind. 

“A story?” Fleur asked, heavily accented, “What kind?”

“The true kind,” Ed said, perching on the tabletop like a proper gay, “Roy was there too, he could probably add fun commentary.”

“And point out when you’re exaggerating.”

“I never exaggerate!” Ed gasped, turning to face their husband, still seated in the chair like a square, “Rude. Anyways. The State Alchemist exam is a fuckin’  _ monster _ . Or so I’m told; it was barely harder than rudimentary arithmetic but I’m also a literal genius who can pull off shit most people can’t even dream of, so,” they shrugged.

Arching one perfect eyebrow, Fleur leaned slightly to the left to peek at Roy, “President?” She asked.

“No, they’re right about that one, unfortunately,” he’d at least leant back in the chair now, linking his hands behind his head and grinning lazily, “their time on the written test has yet to be beaten. Even their brother was two minutes behind.”

“Like I said,” Ed preened, “genius. So first is the written test, like the bastard said. It’s long as shit and has shit like alchemical theory and symbology and all of that. Honestly, the part that took me the longest was writing everything out,” they rolled their eyes, “and not lapsing into my personal code. I had to scratch out a whole damn paragraph at one point because I’d fucked that up."

“Code?” Krum spoke up, interested; it was the first time Ed had seen any form of expression on his face; it was surprisingly endearing.

“Alchemy research is generally very private,” Ed explained, “especially for state alchemists or alchemists who are working on more sensitive topics,” like human transmutation, “so to keep information from falling into the wrong hands, most alchemists write all of their notes in a personalized code. That way, even if someone finds their research they’d have to work like hell to crack the damn code before they could understand anything. It’s impossible for most people.”

“But not you,” Cedric said with a sigh.

“But not me,” Ed agreed, “when we were kids Al, my little brother, and I had to crack another alchemist’s code -- it was hidden in recipes, of all things. Truth, that shit took  _ forever _ ,” and also taught them that philosopher’s stones were made of souls.

“What’s your code?” Krum asked.

“Private,” Ed grinned and it was all teeth, “Also in a mix of dead languages and languages that don’t exist in this universe. I encrypted my encryption.”

“Also true,” Roy piped up, “I can’t even read their notes and I married them.”

“I said I was sorry,” Ed groaned, “ _ and  _ I offered to translate them for you as long as you burnt them after. So anyways, after that is a psychological exam--”

“How the bloody hell did you manage to pass that?” Harry asked, announcing his return by being an absolute brat -- Ed loved him, they really did.

“Oh, I lied through my teeth. I was  _ twelve _ , what well adjusted pre-teen tries to join the damn military? Actually, while we’re on that matter did you--”

“Get the bill raising the minimum enlistment age to eighteen, no exceptions, through parliament? Of course I did, I got the letter from Olivier this morning but figured you had enough going on today. You’ll be happy to know she made three ministers cry.”

“I love that woman,” Ed sighed, “she’s an actual god, fuck my dad.”

“Did you just say your father is God?” Fleur looked alarmed.

“ _ A  _ god,” Ed corrected, “it’s a long story that’ll delve into about twelve reasons why Flamel is a hack so I’m not gonna tell it, but now that you mention it I’ve punched  _ two  _ gods in the face,” and they were probably far too happy about it, “So, after I lied my ass off, I got brought before the old Fuhrer to demonstrate my ability. Me, being twelve and having no respect for authority at the time--”

“ _ At the time?”  _ Roy wheezed.

“-- decided I was going to show off my ability to transmute without a circle while also telling Bradley, may his not-soul rest in not-peace, to go fuck himself. I scoff at the nice officer who offers me chalk, pull a gaudy-ass spear out of the ground, and just  _ throw  _ it, right at the Fuhrer’s face. Almost got my damn self arrested.”

“Almost gave your damn husband a heart attack.”

Ed waved a hand dismissively, “I was twelve and I hated you, that was just a plus.”

“ _ Excuse me _ ?” Fleur asked, before slipping into French and muttering something to Krum that he seemed to understand if his amused smile was anything to go by.

“Hey, this is the first time I’ve seen you smile so I’m not gonna question it,” Ed pointed first at Krum then at Fleur, “but next time you’re gonna share with the class, missy.”

Fleur’s laugh sounded like bells and almost overshadowed the whistle. 

Cedric’s face drained of blood and Ed reacted on instinct, pulling the yellow student into a tight hug, “You’ve got this, okay?” They said, “Donut is a sweetie, if you approach real slowly and hum under your breath she’s not likely to roast on sight. You know where the first array is, you just have to get to it.”

Cedric nodded almost robotically and in no time at all he was ducking out of the tent, leaving Ed to clench their hands into fists and bite their tongue to hold in a hundred different expletives and a scream. 

“He’s going to be fine, love,” Roy whispered directly into their ear before pressing a warm kiss to their temple, “I’ll be right there. I’ll make sure of it. Are you going to the stands?”

Thinking about it for a moment, Ed shook their head, “No, I had Minnie save me a seat but I don’t think I can watch. I’ll keep an eye on this lot, you watch over Cedric. If Dumbledore--”

“Opens his mouth to speak bullshit I will set fire to his robes,” Roy said sagely, and even though Ed knew he was lying it was still a little comforting, “I know.”

And one brief kiss that ended far too soon later, Roy was leaving the tent as well and Ed was left alone with the champions. 

“Who wants to hear more stories?” Ed asked, almost desperately, “One time I got eaten by a guy whose stomach was a giant, fangy mouth and ended up in actual purgatory with the Emperor of Xing. We ate one of my boots.”

They tried incredibly hard not to listen to what was going on outside -- not Donut’s roars, or Bagman’s  _ fucking commentary.  _ If they were going to have someone commentate they should have asked Lee Jordan to do it. Sure, Minnie may have had to swat him upside his head every once in a while but at least he would be  _ concerned _ .

_ “Oooh, narrow miss, there! Very narrow!”  _ Fucking pardon them, how narrow? What was Cedric doing besides  _ deviating from the goddamn plan _ . 

_ "He's taking risks, this one!"  _ No he fucking better not be or he was going to get a metal foot up his stupid, risky ass. 

_ "Clever move - pity it didn't work!"  _ What move didn’t work, Bagman? What. Fucking. Move? Ludo?

“This is why my mother couldn’t watch Al and I when we played,” Ed realized out loud; at some point they’d stopped narrating their more ridiculous exploits, instead sinking into the chair Roy had once occupied and dropping their head into their hands, “I am going to have a heart attack and I don’t even know what he’s doing?”

“Roy would step in if it went bad, wouldn’t he?” Harry asked, concerned.

“Yes,” Ed groaned, head dropping lower, “that isn’t stopping me from worrying.” A wayward thought had them looking up again, “Also, Fleur, Viktor, that extends to you two as well. You may not have accepted our offer for extra alchemy help, but we’re also not going to let anything happen to you.”

Krum’s face remained stony but Fleur allowed a small smile to grace her pale face, “ _ Merci _ ,” she said. 

“Hey,” Ed managed a smile of their own, “I know that one.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> todays chapter title is brought to you --very fittingly -- from Mustang Kids by Zella Day.


	17. stay that way for the rest of the day and watch the time go

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> happy holigays 
> 
> err
> 
> holidays

Ed moved to the stands when the whistle went off to beckon Harry into the arena, slipping into the seat Minerva had saved for them with a shaky smile, “Do I look as nervous as I feel?”

“If you’re going to vomit,” she told him tersely, “do it in  _ that  _ direction.” 

“How did Cedric do?” They asked, dropping their voice low, “We hid circles around the arena did he--”

“Contain his dragon inside of a very large stone cage that, by all accounts, he should not have been able to produce after studying alchemy for less than three months? Yes.” After a moment of disapproving side-eye, she relaxed and offered them a tired smile, “Good work, Elric.”

Letting out a long breath, Ed relaxed their shoulders as much as they were able and craned their neck towards the judges table. Roy didn’t look especially harried, but then again, Roy was a career politician. Roy had masks on top of his masks. 

He looked… artful, in that stupid, effortless way that Ed would never in their life be able to replicate. His hair was windswept and he’d thrown on his dark wool coat over his uniform to block out the chill. He had his gloves on, Ed noticed, which was smart. No need for everyone to know there were  _ two  _ alchemists on the grounds who could perform alchemy without a circle.

A gentle volly of blue sparks later and Ed was rolling several small, wooden cubes in their flesh hand; they offered one to Minerva. “Would you care to help me get my husband’s attention?”

Minerva inhaled sharply, “I would love nothing more than to throw rocks at the Fuhrer of Amestris right now,” she said, “but there are students around and I have a reputation.” 

Ed shrugged, “Suit yourself.”

It took three cubes to the back of his head for Roy to half turn in his seat, eyebrows raised expectantly. He was doing that thing where he had one arm thrown over the back of his seat for leverage while he twisted his torso around and Ed’s mouth went immediately dry. 

Roy’s eyes met theirs through the crowd; he smiled and Ed melted, lifting his hand in a wave before curling his fingers in the military hand sign that would tell him to keep his guard way, way up.

Smile gentling around the edges, Roy nodded and turned back around; his arm, however, stayed over the back of his chair so Ed could see his responding sign loud and clear -- this one wasn’t military, simply standard Amestrian Sign Language.

_ I love you _ .

As soon as Harry stepped into the arena, Thistle tried to roast him. They’d considered this avenue, however, and Harry dropped to the ground, activating an array hidden there to pull rock from the earth in a tall wall around him. 

It was a little uneven, and there was less structural integrity than Ed would have preferred, and it was  _ definitely  _ too thin, but it stopped Harry from becoming British bar-b-que so they weren’t going to complain.

Thistle, understandably, was slightly displeased that her attack hadn’t char-broiled her opponent; she thrashed the spikey tail for which her species was named, leaving gouges in the ground that were at least three feet long and several inches deep. 

Ed’s stomach dropped. Harry’s stone shields wouldn’t stand up to that tail. Down near the arena, Roy’s shoulders tensed like he’d been electrocuted. Harry’s alchemy had been more precise when they’d been drilling him on it, but there hadn’t actually been a dragon actively trying to eat him at the time.

Shit, shit. 

“ _ Your wand, Harry!”  _ Someone, Hermione, shrieked from the left and Ed whipped their head around to look at her.

“The Firebolt,” they breathed, “You’ve been practicing the summoning charm, haven’t you?”

Hermione nodded, distracted, as Harry dodged out from behind his wall and made a break towards Thistle. 

What was that child  _ doing _ ? Sure they’d practiced hand-to-hand, but Harry hadn’t bested  _ Roy  _ yet, let alone a fully grown, fully pissed dragon. 

“Is he bleeding?” Minerva asked, leaning forward in alarm.

“What?” Ed asked, and great, now they were also alarmed. The stands were turning into a clock store.

“His palm!” Hermione pointed, rising to her feet, “Professor McGonagall is right! He is bleeding!”

Ed’s breath caught in their throat. “He must have lost his chalk,” they realized, “he’s going to use his blood to draw a circle.” But what fucking  _ circle _ , Harry?

At least in a pissing contest with a dragon there wasn’t an exceptionally long period of  _ waiting  _ for what would happen next. Everything went down rather quickly, considering anything that stayed still too long came out of the encounter extra crispy.

Harry’s bloody hand slammed into the ground while the other raised his wand; he shouted something Ed couldn’t hear, and then he shot upwards. The pillar was wobbly, structurally unsound, and something Teacher would have absolutely thrown knives at Ed and Al over. 

Eye to eye with Thistle, Harry struck an impressive figure. From the distance, they couldn’t even see him shaking, though he must have been. The sun was at just the right angle to break across his face and send shadows dancing across his cheeks. He looked like a hero from one of those storybooks they’d read to Elicia when she was little.

And then he leapt from the pillar.

Ed shot to their feet, a scream stuck in their throat, but Harry never hit the ground. He soared up and over the stands, making a loop around the arena, looking for an opening. 

“Great Scott he can fly!” Bagman shouted, and Ed didn’t know who the fuck Scott was, but for once they agreed with the man, “Are you seeing this, Mr. Krum?”

Oh, good, Viktor hadn’t been murdered.

Ed remained standing for the remainder of the challenge, watching Harry dive and twist and pull up just in time to avoid Thistle’s flame. It wasn’t enough, though, she still hadn’t moved enough for Harry to get to the eggs, so he went up, and up. Higher, and higher, and higher still until Ed seriously worried about the amount of oxygen he was getting up there. 

Thistle roared, her wings opening like she was about to take off, and Harry was off like a shot, swooping in and grabbing the golden egg before she knew what hit her -- or rather what didn’t. Harry had managed to complete his task without hurting Thistle or her eggs. 

There was cheering; the crowd had gone  _ wild  _ with Harry’s victory and Ed figured there would be an awful lot of  _ Potter Stinks  _ badges in trash cans across the castle and grounds. 

When Minerva started to move from the stands, Ed followed her. 

The second Harry’s feet hit the ground Ed was on him; hands on his shoulders, studying his face, taking in the shallow gash on his shoulder and the crude circle carved into his palm.

“I gave you  _ two  _ pieces of chalk,” they scolded.

“Shit happens,” Harry said with a bashful smile. 

“That was  _ excellent,  _ Potter,” Minerva shouldered her way in, smiling shakily at Harry and gesturing towards the large tent to the left, “Go let Poppy have a look at your shoulder and hand, Diggory is already there. He got burned--”

“What?” Ed turned to her, eyebrows furrowed, “You didn’t tell me that!”

“You really would have thrown up if I had,” she pointed out.

Hagrid appeared behind Harry a moment later, massive hand grabbing onto his uninjured shoulder and whirling him around to pull him into a hug so tight Ed’s ribs ached in sympathy, “You did it!” Hagrid pulled back to beam down at Harry, “And against the Horntail! She was the brattiest of the bunch, you know? Even Ed had trouble with that one!”

“I’m going to pretend I didn’t just hear that,” Minerva sighed, long suffering and so distinctly Riza-like that Ed began to laugh.

And then they couldn’t stop laughing. They guffawed all the way to the medical tent, cackled their way through Harry getting his ass handed to him by an irate Madam Pomfrey who looked about ready to hex him when he admitted to using a sharp shard of stone to carve the array into his palm, and wetly snickered when Ron and Hermione arrived and Ron finally,  _ finally  _ apologized to Harry. 

They kept getting looks, like they’d finally done it and gone completely bonkers --and to be honest, maybe they  _ had _ . They were certainly past due for a good, old fashioned mental breakdown, this could very well have been the straw that broke the dragon’s back-- but it didn’t matter, because somehow all four kids had survived the first task with only superficial injuries that Poppy could have healed in her sleep.

Ron regaled them with the antics of the rest of the champions as they made their way back towards the arena to get Harry’s scores; Harry had flushed scarlet when Ed insisted on accompanying them but Ed had just let their face go completely blank as they said, “ _ Two  _ pieces of chalk,” and that was really the end of that argument.

Cedric had done exactly as they’d planned, like a  _ good  _ little brat who wasn’t hellbent on making Ed’s hair go gray before its time, only getting a little singed around the eyebrows by Donut.

Fleur managed to hypnotize Absinth to sleep to steal the egg, though unfortunately when dragons snored they sometimes snorted fire from their nostrils, which Fleur learned the hard way when it caught her skirt on fire. She was fine, though, Ron assured them.

Then there was Krum. Krum, Krum, Krum. _ Viktor Krum _ .

Ed had never punched a child -- Pride didn’t count, he was like. Centuries old.-- but they supposed that, legally, in the wizarding world Krum was an adult.

“He was the best, after you of course,” Ron was telling Harry and Ed made a strangled noise in the back of their throat.

“He blinded her! And made her crush  _ her  _ eggs!” They yelled, waving the hand not clamped firmly around Harry’s good shoulder for emphasis, “He was not the  _ best _ ! He was the worst! I’m gonna  _ skin  _ him and use his pelt to make Cinnamon a new blanket for her nest!”

Ron’s eyes were wide as dinner plates, “Err…”

“Ed bonded with the dragons,” Harry sighed, “named them and everything. Cinnamon is Chinese Fireball. Also their favorite.”

“Oh. Uh… That’s rough, mate.”

_ Rough _ . Ed was going to show them all rough. 

Their poor  _ baby _ . The sweetest dragon on the planet and Krum hurt her. No one else hurt their damn dragon! Harry had the  _ asshole  _ dragon and managed not to hurt her!

In the end, Harry had tied for first place with Krum, which only served to enrage Ed all the more. 

Before the champions could go back to the castle they had to go meet with Bagman. Ron promised he would wait -- he probably wanted some time to catch up and continue apologizing for being such a complete jackass about the whole thing.

Roy met them at the castle steps, Falman and Draco in tow, and reeled them in immediately to press a desperate, elated kiss to their mouth.

“They did it,” Roy breathed when they broke for air.

“They did it,” Ed agreed, grin taking over their face, “holy shit they did it!” They turned to Draco and Falman, who apparently became very engaged in a very important discussion about proper broom maintenance in an effort to avoid Roy and Ed’s PDA, “Hey, you two!”

Falman and Draco looked over, deer caught in headlights.

“They fucking  _ did it _ !” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> is this the shortest chapter ever? yes.   
> but it was the holidays and my family are nightmares and also i was dragging ass on this bit anyways so ill make it up to you
> 
> chapter title from: in our bedroom after the war by Stars
> 
> because thats how i feel finishing this chapter  
> at least the war is fucking over

**Author's Note:**

> blah blah my tumblr is pansexualorgana come say hi [here](https://pansexualorgana.tumblr.com/)
> 
> all my chapters are song lyrics so lets get that going here 
> 
> title: circles - post malone
> 
> 1 - legendary - welshly arms  
> 2- give us a little love - fallulah  
> 3- the scientist - coldplay (im a basic ass bitch fuck off)  
> 4- Only Us - Ben Platt and Laura Dreyfuss (from Dear Evan Hansen)  
> 5-Zombie - the cranberries  
> 6- requiem - laura dreyfuss (also from deh)  
> 7- greek god - conan gray  
> 8- First Burn - Lexi Lawson, Julia Harriman, Shoba Narayan, Rachelle Ann Go, Arianna Afsar, (from the hamilton mixtape)  
> 9- which witch - florence & the machine  
> 10- forgive the children we once were - delta rae  
> 11- make a move - icon for hire  
> 12- astronaut - transviolet  
> 13- farewell wanderlust - the amazing devil  
> 14- witchsickness - johanna warren  
> 15- Miracle - Lovex


End file.
